Tffi WOMAN 

WHO CAME 

AT NIGHT 

By A MINISTER 




Class /.- ' :'<-■ '' (--' 

Book // 7^^^ fJi^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME 
AT NIGHT 



y"^.. 




.n '3.-1^ 



V 



She Borrowed Money of the Minister for School 
Books, and of His Wife for Lingerie [ Page 49 ] 



THE WOMAN WHO 
CAME AT NIGHT 



BEING THE EXPERIENCES 
OF A MINISTER 




THE PILGRIM PRESS 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 



T5^^^ 



hi'' 



,;,\A/4 



V: 



COPYRIGHT, 1914 
BY LUTHER H. GARY 



THE -PLIMPTON -PRESS 
NORWOOD - MASS • U-S-A 



OCT 30 1914 

©C/.A388l5e 



TO 

E. R. B, 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

The Publishers and Author desire to acknowledge 
the courtesy of Miss Gertrude Lane, Editor of 
the Woman's Home Companion, in allowing these 
stories to be reprinted from that publication. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The Woman Who Came at Night 1 

The Lingerie Lady 31 

The Voice of the Lord 59 

The Woman Divided 87 

The Shadow on the Screen 121 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

She borrowed money of the minister for 
school books, and of his wife for 
Ungerie Frontispiece 

She had come to me at night, hardly 

knowing why she came . Facing page 16 

She came to sob out her perplexity in 

my study 88 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME 
AT NIGHT 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT 
NIGHT 

THE FIRST IN THE SERIES OF A MINIS- 
TER'S EXPERIENCES 



SUPPOSE I have known twenty- 
five thousand women in my nearly 
thirty years of ministry. There 
have been all kinds of women, as there 
have been all kinds of men; but as I 
look back over the years, the women 
show up rather more favorably than 
the men. In the long procession of 
those who have touched my life — 
sometimes for a mere moment, some- 
times during the happy years of a long 
pastorate — the number who have been 
a disappointment, who have proved 
unworthy of confidence or unresponsive 
to service rendered in their behalf, 
has been so small as to be practically 
[3] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

negligible. I should like to emphasize 
this at the very outset. 

So long as the world is as it is, he 
who enters upon the work of the min- 
istry must expect that more than a half 
of his time and effort will be claimed 
by women — at least if he serves in 
parishes where ordinary conditions pre- 
vail. In that respect the minister is 
not different from the musician or the 
actor, the lecturer or the popular author. 
The proportion of women in church 
congregations is not so overwhelming 
by any means as the proportion of 
women at concerts, at plays or among 
the readers of new books. Women have 
leisure for these finer things of life, as 
their harried and driven husbands do 
not; and in their church attendance 
there is another influence more potent 
even than their leisure. Spiritual in- 
sight of the truer sort is the peculiar 
birthright of good women; they are 
the preservers of reverence; the trans- 
[4] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

mitters of vision to the muscled men 
who are their sons. If the Lord when 
he Cometh shall find faith in the world, 
it will be due in no small measure to 
the apostolic succession of good women, 
who have administered its sacred rites 
from generation to generation at the 
altar of their homes. 

No minister of the gospel could have 
a more varied or more interesting ex- 
perience with women than the Master 
himself. Of the little group of followers 
whose names have come down to us 
linked with his — those who knew him 
best and in whose company he was most 
frequently — nearly half are women, 
and women of all classes and descrip- 
tions. There were the two kindly 
maiden ladies, Mary and Martha, who 
were active in all good causes, "troubled 
with many things," in whose house and 
with whose brother Lazarus he so often 
found congenial company. There were 
rich women, like the wife of the steward 
[5] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

of Herod, drawn by the wonder of his 
new doctrine, who followed him on his 
journeys and contributed liberally to 
his work. There were sick women who 
found in the splendour of his health and 
the wonderful tonic of his joy in living 
a new impulse to live and to grow well. 
And there were women of the streets, 
one of whom, at least, caught up in the 
very moment of her sin and cast at his 
feet for censure, looked up to see the 
first glance of gentlemanly considera- 
tion that had ever shone for her in the 
eyes of any man, and was re-created 
from that instant. If the Saviour of 
the world found so much of his inspira- 
tion in the companionship of good 
women, builded so much of his hope 
for the regeneration of mankind upon 
them, we who are seeking to better 
our own little portion of the world after 
the pattern he set down are not likely 
to progress very far by departing from 
his example. 

[6] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

So I say at the outset that among 
the twenty-five thousand women whom 
I have known in my active ministry 
twenty-four thousand and some hun- 
dreds have been good women. And 
among these I now feel sure — though 
for years I lived in uncertainty about 
it — that I can class The Woman Who 
Came at Night. 

The parsonage had been built in the 
days when the city was smaller, and land 
values low. It stood far back from the 
street, almost completely hidden by a 
hedge that ran along the side walk and 
by the two splendid oaks that had been 
planted by my earliest predecessor, the 
first pastor of the church, seventy-five 
years before. On Saturday nights as 
I would sit before the open fireplace in 
the study working on my Sunday morn- 
ing sermons I seemed to be lifted clear 
out of the environment of the week, so 
completely were the disturbing sights 
[7] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

and sounds of the outside screened from 
me. It was generally known among 
the congregation that Saturday evenings 
were devoted to my sermons; therefore 
I was almost never interrupted. And 
on this particular evening the knock at 
the study door was doubly surprising, for 
a heavy rain had been falling since 
noon. 

A preacher is only a made-over lay- 
man; there is no magic in his ordina- 
tion that extracts the temptation to 
selfishness entirely from him. I have 
been tempted more than once to let the 
telephone ring unanswered, or to pre- 
tend that I had retired when there came 
a knock on the door, knowing that no 
shred of light could creep through the 
study windows to betray me. And the 
temptation was never stronger than on 
that rainy Saturday night. The study 
was very comfortable and I had reached 
an absorbing point in my writing. I 
waited until the knock was repeated, and 
[8] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

then, because there seemed something 
strangely anxious and appealing in it, 
I walked over to the door and threw it 
open. 

Almost before I knew it a woman's 
form had flashed by me into the light, 
and a voice half spoke, half whispered 
in my ear: 

"Oh, please close it quickly!" 

The voice belonged unmistakably to 
a woman of culture and one accustomed 
apparently to command. I shut the 
door and turned toward her. 

"You wished to see me.^" I said. 

"Yes," she answered and dropped 
into the chair before the fire. 

She was of medium height and must 
have been, I judged, between twenty- 
five and thirty. She wore a plain black 
coat that covered her almost completely, 
and a veil, through which, as she turned 
toward the light, I could see brown eyes 
and features that were singularly at- 
tractive. She was unmistakably ner- 
[9] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

vous, and tapped upon the arm of the 
chair while she talked. 

"May I keep my veil on. Doctor?" 
she began. 

"As you please," I answered. 

"You see I am a little excited," she 
laughed shortly. "I don't usually make 
calls at this time of night. I was a 
little abrupt at the door, I fear; I hope 
you will forgive me. You see," she 
hesitated, "you see, I thought perhaps I 
might have been followed." 

"I don't remember whether I have 
had the pleasure — " 

"No," she answered quickly. "But 
I have heard you preach, and your son 
Charles is in my class at school, the 
Lincoln School — " 

"Surely," I responded, trying hard to 
remember the names of the teachers 
who had my various boys in charge. 
"I have heard him speak of you often. 
Miss — " She came to my rescue. 

"Miss Daniels. I live near here; and 
[10] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

you're the only minister in the city 
whom I know. At least I felt that I 
knew you — well enough to — " 

"To talk to me like a father — or a 
mother," I said. 

"Thank you so much," she responded; 
and there was a little catch in her voice. 
"My mother died a long time ago, and 
my father couldn't understand, even if 
he wanted to. You see I'm going to 
run away; at least I think — " 

"Suppose you start at the beginning," 
I suggested, "and tell me just what 
happened." 

She seemed relieved by the sugges- 
tion. "Oh, I'm sure I can trust you," 
she said. "I'm going away to be married 
— to New York. Mr. Howard, the 
man, — there are reasons why he can't 
marry me in this state. He has asked 
me to meet him in New York a week 
from next Thursday." She stopped, a 
little terrified by what she had said. 
"Doesn't that shock you?" 
[11] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

"Not necessarily. But you will have 
to begin further back — that is if you 
really want me to help you. How long 
have you been in the city?" 

"Two years," she answered "I came 
here from the normal school two years 
ago. Sometimes it seems ten: if youVe 
ever lived alone in a boarding-house 
where you fairly hated all the other 
boarders you know what I mean." 

I nodded, and she went on, appar- 
ently encouraged. 

"I was born out in Illinois. My 
father owns a farm out there, and is 
fairly well to do, as farmers go. But 
I hated farm life: it is too depressingly 
dull. The sameness of it, the awful 
certainty that one day is going to be 
exactly like the others, that nothing 
will ever happen, world without end 
— I hated that from my earliest girl- 
hood, or at least from the time I began 
to read and to know something about 
the world outside. My father thought 
[12] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

me unreasonable, and perhaps he was 
right, from his point of view. He gave 
me everything that he could — on a 
farm. Once or twice a year I went to 
the city to buy clothes, or something 
that he couldn't find in the mail-order 
catalogs. He couldn't understand what 
more a girl should want than that, and 
I long ago gave up trying to make it 
clear to him. For ten years after my 
mother died I kept house for him; and 
then — I don't know whether to call it 
a misfortune or an act of Providence — 
he married a woman with whom I could 
never in the world have the least bond 
of sympathy; and I persuaded him that 
the only possible solution was to let me 
go away to school. I was twenty-two 
when I went, four or five years older 
than I ought to have been; but I had 
the ideas and thoughts of a girl of six- 
teen. And compared to a good many 
girls of the city I was younger than 
sixteen." 

[13] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

"You were still looking for a fairy 
prince," I said. 

She laughed a clear appealing sort of 
a laugh which seemed to brush away 
the evident restraint under which she 
had been speaking. 

"That almost describes it. The nor- 
mal school opened up a new world to 
me. For the first time in my life I 
found real companionship and a chance 
to read and to hear music and to iJe 
irresponsible. It was like heaven. Then 
I came here two years ago to teach 
and—" 

"And what?" 

"It's almost worse than the farm," 
she said resentfully. "It's lonesome; I 
haven't any friends. Have you ever 
been really alone in a city.^^ The coun- 
try is friendly at least. It wraps you 
up at night in a kindly quietness, and 
wakes you in the morning with a soft 
sunbeam. But the city — it just shouts 
in your ears. I'm tired of the shouting 
[14] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

and lonesomeness." She stopped a mo- 
ment, and then added suddenly, "Mr. 
Howard is a theatrical man." 

"You met him when he was playing 
here.?" 

"Yes." 

I waited a moment for her to con- 
tinue and as she did not speak, I took 
up the story for her. 

"He was stopping at your boarding- 
house," I said, "or possibly he picked 
up your bag when you dropped it in 
the street, or brushed against you in a 
car. He was very courteous and at- 
tentive and you let him call. He told 
you about the interesting life of the 
theatre, and how happy it could be if 
there were two to share it. But he 
confessed that he was lonesome, that 
the travel was monotony when one had 
to do it alone, that he dreamed of a 
little cottage that would be a real home. 
Then you told him all about your lone- 
liness, and he told you that he loved you. 
[15] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

He confessed that he had been married 
before — and so you promised to meet 
him in New York a week from Thursday 
morning." 

She let me finish without interruption, 
but at the last word her face dropped 
suddenly into her hands and her shoul- 
ders shook, though she made no sound. 
After a bit I stepped over to her and 
laid my hand on her shoulder. 

"Now tell me," I said, "about the 
other man." 

"Oh how did you know?" she sobbed 
and then fitfully, little by little, she 
finished the story. 

There had been another man or rather, 
there was. He was the only son of a 
neighboring farmer back in Illinois, and 
all through her girlhood his devotion 
had never faltered. He was big and 
muscular and had red hair (Howard's 
hair was black and curly) and she 
thought, as a girl, that he had no soul. 
She liked him in a way — admired him 
[16] 




She had Come to Me at Night, Hardly Knowing 
Why She Came 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

even — but the thought of living for- 
ever on his farm or any other farm was 
too much. There had been a tearful 
interview on the day she left for the 
normal school, and she had not seen 
him since. 

But every Tuesday morning she re- 
ceived a letter from him, written in his 
big, unformed hand, and carried to 
the post office Sunday night in order 
that she might have it always at the 
same hour. He never had admitted to 
himself nor to her that there was any 
doubt of the final outcome. He knew 
she would come back to him. And 
mingled with the homely gossip of the 
farm, the birth of calves, the harvesting 
of crops, and the simple annals of the 
neighborhood, there were brief references 
to the books he was reading, and his 
progress in a correspondence course. He 
was going to be worthy of her when she 
came back — 

So she had come to me at night. 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

hardly knowing why she came, but 
driven by the necessity for telling her 
story to somebody. Probably, she said, 
I would think her foolish to have come 
when she had already made up her 
mind. For of course she had made up 
her mind: she was going away a week 
from Thursday; she was determined to 
snatch for herself at last the romance 
and thrill, and all that her little starved 
life had wanted so long. She just 
wouldnH go back to a farm — 

When she had finished I waited. The 
clock in the dining room struck twelve, 
a long, slow, solemn stroke, as though 
time had grown weary in its incessant 
task of measuring human frailty and 
woe. I waited until the last peal had 
sounded, and then I started in to tell 
her, as gently and earnestly as I could, 
some things — many things — that her 
mother would have told her, had she 
lived. 

I told her that life is a long road and 
[18] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

youth merely the first sunshiny ap- 
proach to it. There are rough places in 
the road, I told her, and marshes and 
dry, parched, desert spots. Many 
people fall away on the road, I said, 
and are lost; or, more hopeless still, 
are broken, and drag themselves there- 
after wearily to the end. But others 
live through the long way triumphantly. 
And these last are they who have the 
pearl of great price — faith in God and 
health and — if they be women — the 
love of righteous men. 

Youth passes quickly, I told her, and 
with it all desire and restlessness that 
is not love; but love remains a strong, 
vibrant, never-faltering companion on 
the long way. I told her some things 
which that love would and would not 
do. One thing it could never do, I 
said, if it w^as real and deep and lasting 
— it could never make such a demand 
upon her as Howard had made. 

She took it all very nobly, looking 
[19] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

straight into my face, and thrusting 
her handkerchief up now and then under- 
neath her veil to catch a big tear that 
furrowed slowly down her cheek. When 
I had finished she thanked me and 
promised that she would write Howard 
that she could not come. 
/ "But I'll never go back to the farm," 
she said. 

"I shall pray to God for you tonight," 
I answered; and at her request I closed 
the door quickly behind her, for she 
insisted that she must be allowed to 
find her way home alone. 

It was nearly one o'clock. The ser- 
mon lay unfinished on my desk. I was 
very tired, for one cannot give himself 
to the problems and cares of an- 
other without paying the price after- 
wards in weariness of soul. That is 
the thing — and not the preaching — 
that wears ministers out. Yet late as 
it was I sat down and wrote a letter 
to the big, redheaded giant on the II- 
[20] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

linois farm, in which I told him also 
many things. 

She was not at church next morning 
as I had thought she might be, nor at 
the evening service either. It was not 
until Wednesday evening that I saw 
her. She slipped in late at the priyer 
meeting, and lingering after the con- 
gregation had left, asked me if she might 
speak to me for a minute. I led her 
into the church study. She was evi- 
dently tired almost to the point of 
exhaustion; there were dark rings under 
her eyes. She did not sit down, but 
spoke abruptly, almost before I had 
closed the door. 

"There is his answer!" she said, and 
thrust into my hand first a telegram and 
then a letter. The telegram read: 

** Will arrive Thursday night — be 

ready. Am writing. Love, Edwin 

Howard." 

The letter was long and full of the 
melodramatic language of the stage. 
[21] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

It was written on the stationery of a 
New York theatrical club. God had 
intended them for each other, it said; 
nothing should ever change his deter- 
mination nor keep them apart. He 
could do anything, would do anything, 
. for her; but without her his life would 
be an empty sham. She must come 
with him — he would have no other 
answer. He would be at a certain spot 
in the park on Thursday night, with a 
carriage; she must meet him there. 
And it ended with a picture of the 
journeys they would take into places 
where she had never been, and of the 
little vine-covered cottage to which they 
would at last turn home. It was fervid, 
intense — too intense I thought. It 
sounded fair: but I did not like it. 
I started to speak but she interrupted, 
"It's no use, Doctor; I have made 
my decision. I came to thank you for 
your kindness and to show you that 
you are wrong. He's coming for me, 
[22] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

you see, and — I am going. You have 
been very kind. I — Good night." Her 
hand touched mine for just a moment, 
and she was gone. 

It seemed a tragic thing to me — 
one of those heart-breaking experiences 
in a minister's life in which, having done 
the very most that he can, he must 
stand by passively to see his own 
defeat. I telegraphed the big, red- 
haired young man in Illinois that night, 
and wrote him. It was all I could do. 
This was my letter, as I remember it. 

"Dear David, — I call you 'David,' for 
though I have never met you I know you 
very well. I have lived with you in 
spirit most of the time since I wrote you 
last, I have thought of you in the day- 
time and prayed for you every night — 
and for her. She has made her decision. 
She is going away with him next Thurs- 
day-week night. He is to meet her with 
a carriage in the park at the monument at 
[23] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

nine o'clock and they are to take the ten 
o'clock train for New York, 

"7 say that I know you very well. I 
think I do. You are hig -framed, big- 
muscled, big-hearted, and I believe you are 
true-hearted as well. I believe you are 
worthy of the love of a good woman, and I 
am convinced, too, that she is good — and 
worthy of you. It is for that reason that 
I have cared so much and tried so hard. 
I have done all I can. I must leave the 
rest to you and to God. You must come 
here on Thursday. You must see her if 
you can. If you cannot, you must be at 
the monument with a carriage at nine 
o'clock on Thursday night. It is your 
only chance. Come as quickly as you can, 
We shall want you to be our guest while 
you are in town. 

^'May God bless you, my boy, and her.'** 

I mailed the letter that night and 
walked slowly home, planning how I 
might bring the two together when 
[24] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

David should arrive. And at home I 
found one of those unforseen but un- 
deniable messages that break in so 
often upon the preacher's life and plans. 
A former parishioner had died in a far 
away city; the telegram was from his 
wife, asking me to come at once and 
conduct the funeral service in fulfill- 
ment of a promise I had made him long 
before. There was nothing to do but 
to go at once. My wife packed our 
bags and we left that night, not to 
return for ten days. And in those 
ten days David must have come, and 
Howard — and The Woman Who Came 
at Night gone away. I telegraphed 
her on Wednesday a message that 
should have reached her Thursday morn- 
ing; urging her again to choose the 
love that had shown itself true and could 
be depended upon over the long road. 
She never answered the telegram. And 
when I returned to the city my inquiries 
at her boarding-house brought only the 
[25] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

information that she had gone away on 
the preceding Thursday and had left 
no forwarding address. 

The procession of those who cast 
their burdens upon the preacher moves 
too rapidly to allow much time for retro- 
spect. Yesterday's people and their 
problems have to give way before the 
new company clamoring for attention 
today; and as "yesterday" becomes 
"day before yesterday" and then "a 
week ago yesterday" and so on, those 
who came on that day, even though 
their problems touched us very closely, 
are inevitably pushed back into the 
recesses of memory, seldom to be called 
forth again. But I could not forget The 
Woman Who Came at Night. In the 
years that followed I thought of her 
very often. 

What had happened on that Thursday 

night .^ Had David arrived in time or 

had he, perhaps, discouraged by her 

seeming faithlessness, decided not to 

[26] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

come at all? Had she gone with Howard 
and if so had he really meant to marry 
her, or had her name by this time been 
added to the long list of those who have 
loved not wisely but too well? The 
fact that I had heard nothing from her, 
that she had not answered my telegram 
nor written to thank me for my interest 
in her behalf, led me unwillingly to this 
conclusion. And yet I hated to give 
her up. There was in her so much of 
promise, her shortcomings had been so 
clearly due to lack of wisdom and ex- 
perience, that I found myself still cher- 
ishing, in spite of my own judgment, 
the faith that somehow David had 
arrived in time and that right had won. 

So for seven years The Woman Who 
Came at Night remained a mystery. 
Had David or Howard won her? Had 
there been two carriages that night at 
the monument and if so into which one 
had she stepped? 

At the end of those seven years I was 
[27] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

supplying the pulpit one Sunday at a 
summer resort. After the service had 
been concluded a number of people 
stood waiting to speak to me, but they 
passed out one by one until all had gone 
except the gentleman who was to be 
my host at dinner. Walking toward the 
door with him I noticed for the first 
time that a woman stood alone in the 
church vestibule. She started toward us 
and as we met near the center of the 
church, I recognized her immediately as 
The Woman Who Came at Night. She 
had grown a little stouter, but there was 
the same youthful color in her cheeks, 
and a smile that had not been there 
seven years before. 

"This is a great pleasure," I said to 
her. 

"You must think us both very un- 
grateful," she answered, "not to have 
written or sent you word. I don't 
know how to explain it. Perhaps it 
was sensitiveness, perhaps pride. You 
[28] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

see I've tried to forget those two nights 
— the night at your house and the other. 
And I've pretty nearly succeeded," she 
added with a laugh. 

It was a very musical, happy laugh. 

"Your husband — " I said. 

"He'll be so sorry not to have met 
you. He's more ashamed even than I 
am that we have not written. But he's 
a terribly laggard correspondent. And 
once he did write you but the letter 
came back." 

I was consumed with curiosity, but 
I hardly knew how to phrase a question. 

"Shall I meet him today .f^" I finally 
said. 

"Oh, I wish you might, but he sent 
us on a couple of weeks ahead, and he 
won't get here until Friday. You 
see ^ — " she laughed again — "it's our 
first real vacation in seven years and 
we're going to have a wonderful time of 
it. This is our boy." 

As she spoke, a manly little chap, 
[29] 



THE WOMAN WHO CAME AT NIGHT 

apparently about five years old, who had 
been almost hidden between her and the 
pew, pushed forward and stretched up 
his chubby hand. I stopped to speak 
to him and it seemed to me I had never 
seen a finer, more promising lad of his 
years anywhere. I patted him on the 
head in the fatherly fashion that be- 
comes instinctive with us preachers, and 
as I did so I noticed that he had red 
hair. 



[30] 



n 



THE LINGERIE LADY 




THE LINGERIE LADY 

THE SECOND OF THE EXPERIENCES 

'HEN, unexpectedly, we re- 
ceived a call from our little 
mid-western church to one 
of the largest and best-known city 
churches in the denomination there 
ensued some very serious family dis- 
cussion. My wife was the daughter of 
an Ohio pioneer who had cleared his 
own land and established a comfortable 
farm home; my father had spread heal- 
ing forty miles in either direction as a 
country physician and was too busy 
ever to send a bill. Twelve hundred 
dollars a year was our salary in the little 
village church, and on it we lived com- 
fortably, clothed our three children and 
were beginning to pay back something 
[33] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

on my college debts. Neither of us 
had spent any time in cities. It re- 
quired some little faith and courage to 
believe that we could make a place for 
ourselves among people whose pastors 
had been nationally famous; that we 
could learn the ways of those that 
dwell in apartments instead of homes, 
and have no suppers. Among other 
things that gave us some concern was 
the matter of salary. Four thousand 
dollars, the amount offered, seemed to 
us wealth beyond all dreams. I could 
not help thinking of the books it would 
buy, and my wife — I am quite sure 
— had serious misgivings as to whether 
any minister of the gospel ought to be 
paid so much. 

That was before we reached the city. 
In the first three months of our stay 
there it seemed to me as if every tramp 
and cripple, every man and woman, 
within a hundred miles that was halt 
or lame or blind called on us either at 
[34] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

the church office or the house. Whether 
it is a regular rule in beggardom to 
watch the paper for new arrivals whose 
sympathies may be played upon or 
whether I acquired in the first days a 
reputation for being easy which spread 
through the ranks of the unwashed, I 
cannot tell. But the miracle of the 
feeding of the five thousand was pretty 
nearly duplicated by us in those first 
twelve weeks. We fed everybody that 
came — and we still managed somehow 
to pay our bills. 

Among the others who sought us out 
with ingenious tales of need I recall 
very clearly The Lingerie Lady. She 
was a woman whom one could not easily 
forget — not tall but more than usually 
attractive, with eyes that were big and 
round and wondering like the eyes of 
a child. No one could tell a lie who 
had eyes like that — so you would sup- 
pose at least — and yet I have seen that 
same big, wondering look in the eyes of 
[35] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

our youngest boy, and at the same time 
have observed unmistakable evidence of 
jam about the corners of his mouth. 

I heard her even before I saw her. 
The church office consisted of two rooms: 
my assistant occupied the outer one, 
and a door in one corner opened into 
my private room. On this afternoon I 
was particularly busy, and she had ap- 
parently been speaking to him for some 
time before the sound of their voices 
attracted my attention. I rose and, 
without being seen looked out to see 
him in the very act of handing her a 
bill. She seemed to hesitate a mo- 
ment; then she put it in her purse. 

"I don't know how to thank you," 
she murmured, in a voice that was rich 
and deep and undeniably cultured. 
"You can hardly realize how much this 
will mean to me." 

As she spoke she moved toward the 
door, my assistant following her. There 
she turned and with all the grace of 
[36] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

one to the manor born thanked him 
again and departed. 

At that moment I stepped into the 
room. My assistant was perceptibly 
excited, nor did I blame him greatly. 
She was a very unusual woman — and 
he was very young. 

"Did you see that lady.^" he ques- 
tioned. "One of the most remarkable 
cases — pathetic really. She's a col- 
lege graduate." 

"Yes," I said. "What did she want.^" 

"I felt awfully sorry for her," he 
continued. "She's a teacher of French 
and German. Five years ago she had 
some money left to her — enough, she 
thought, so that she could give up teach- 
ing. But she invested it in oil stock 
and last week she received word that 
the stock is worthless." 

"I saw you give her the money." 
I interrupted. 

He flushed a little. "I couldn't help 
it. She really is a teacher. I asked 
[37 J 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

her some questions in French and Ger- 
man and she answered them perfectly; 
her accent is really fine. She's a woman 
who isn't used to begging; you can see 
that. All she wanted was enough to 
buy one or two text-books: she has 
some pupils already, and she can start 
in with her teaching again right away. 
I gave her ten dollars. Don't you think 
that was right .f^" 

I tried to look grave and judicial and 
reproving. "We must be very careful 
in such matters, Mr. Judson, I said to 
him. "I do not doubt that the woman 
is worthy, but it is very essential that 
we should make the most thorough 
investigation. 

"I should have referred her to the 
Associated Charities pending my de- 
cision." 

I disliked to administer anything that 

seemed like a rebuke to the young man, 

he was so very earnest and eager to do 

the right thing; but in this instance it 

[38] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

seemed to me necessary for his own good. 
"Had she come to me" I concluded, 
"I am quite certain I should not have 
given her any money." 

And two days later, as luck would 
have it, she did come to me while my 
assistant was out making some calls. 
She drew back a little timidly when I 
opened the door in answer to her knock. 

"Oh, excuse me!" she said. "I — I 
expected to find Mr. Judson." 

"He is my assistant," I answered. 
"He will not be back this afternoon. 
Is there anything I can do for you.^" 

"Mr. Judson has been very kind to 
me. I wanted to thank him." 

"He told me about you," I said. 
"How is your teaching progressing.?" 

Her face became suddenly clouded. 
"It is hard," she said; "very hard. I 
am very much out of practice. You see, 
I thought I should never have to go 
back to teaching. Did Mr. Judson tell 
you-" 

[39] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

"He told me," I said hurriedly. 

She was on the verge of tears; I knew 
the symptoms. I have gone through a 
great many hard experiences in my 
ministry, and have accustomed my 
nerves to withstand assaults of various 
kinds, but I have never learned to look 
upon a woman's tears unmoved. 

And there were pressing reasons that 
afternoon for keeping my nerves under 
control. I had been appointed on a 
delegation to call upon the mayor, the 
spokesman had been taken suddenly ill 
and at the last moment I had been asked 
to make the speech. It was my first 
public appearance in the city and I 
wanted to speak well. 

She looked quite pathetic sitting there 
at my desk, a lone woman, tossed aside 
by the rush and greed of the city, and 
there was no doubt that she was going 
to cry. My heart went out to her in 
spite of myself. She might be a fraud 
and a deceiver — I couldn't tell. But at 
[40] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

least she was a woman, and apparently 
distressed. I gave her the five dollars 
to purchase two lexicons which she said 
would enable her to refresh her vocab- 
ulary, and bade her Godspeed, suppos- 
ing that I should never see her again. 

She could not have been more than 
twenty-seven and there was a charm 
about her manner which was more than 
mere beauty. I remember thinking, as 
the door closed behind her, what a pity 
it was that so comely a woman should be 
left to struggle against the current of 
life alone. 

But I was late already. The dele- 
gation was waiting for me when I ar- 
rived, and we hurried across to the 
mayor's office, where I made the speech, 
which the papers next morning said was 
a very good one. 

There was to be a wedding at the 
church that night — for thus the drama 
of the minister's activities shifts sud- 
denly from sorrow to rejoicing. I dined 
[41] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

with the delegation down town, hurried 
home to dress, and it was nearly mid- 
night, after the ceremony and the re- 
ception at the bride's home, when I 
finally climbed out of the carriage at my 
own door. 

My wife met me in the hall-way. 

"Miss Lambert was here," she said. . 

"Lambert," I repeated; "Lambert." 

"Why, yes; the teacher. She said 
you asked her to come, and I took 
care of her — " 

"Oh," I said, as I recalled my visitor 
of the afternoon. 

All my suspicions were suddenly con- 
firmed and I groaned inwardly. The 
week had been a costly one already; 
how much more was to be added. ^^ 

"How much did she get from you.^" 
I said. 

"John" — there was reproof and sor- 
row in my wife's tones — "You're tired, 
dear, but you mustn't speak that way 
about Miss Lambert, as though — as 
[42] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

though she were just a common woman. 
She's very unusual, and of course she 
couldn't tell you what she needed the 
money for and I was glad to help her 
a little." 

"What do you mean she couldn't tell 
me.^" I said. "She told me that she 
needed text-books and I gave her five 
dollars this afternoon." 

"For text-books, yes; but that wasn't 
her real need. The poor dear was 
simply shivering in the cold. John, 
she simply couldn't go through the 
winter that way without any under- 
wear. I gave her ten dollars, and — " 

"Ten and five and ten is twenty- 
five," I said a little savagely, for I was 
tired. "That's a pretty good week for a 
couple of deep brown eyes and a pretty 
voice ! How do you know she didn't have 
any decent underwear .f^ Did you — " 

"John," said my wife, "sometimes 
you're absolutely vulgar. — Of course 
I didn't — she told me so. I know 
[43] 



THE LINGERIE LADT 

she wouldn't tell an untruth — not with 
those eyes." 

"With that we went to bed; and the 
next morning I set down twenty-five 
dollars in the book wherein is recorded 
treasure which may be laid up in heaven 
but will certainly never be repaid on 
earth. If one is not a good loser he has 
no business in the ministry. 

But if I forgot Miss Lambert, she ap- 
parently had no intention of forgetting 
me. I stepped down from the pulpit 
at the close of the service the next 
Sunday morning to find a fine-faced 
old man waiting to speak to me. 

" I am Mr. Mason," he said. "I merely 
wanted to tell you that I provided for 
Miss Lambert and was very glad to be 
of service — very glad indeed. A very 
remarkable young lady, sir; I wish you 
would tell me about her." 

"But I don't know anything about 
her," I protested. "I never saw her but 
once in my life." 

[44] 



THE -LINGERIE LADY 

"What?" flamed the old gentleman. 
"You mean to say you did not send her 
to me?" 

"By no means" I said. "Was it 
text-books or underwear?" 

He returned my look guiltily. 
"Underwear," he said. "She said that 
you sent her to me. I was very busy 
in the office, and should not have seen 
her except for your name. But when 
she came in, I was so impressed with 
her, that I departed from my invar- 
iable rule in such matters and gave her 
ten dollars. She doesn't seem like a 
woman who would lie — " 

"No," I said emphatically, "she 
doesn't!" 

"And it was so apparently distasteful 
to her to ask," he continued. "Mani- 
festly a lady does not like to speak of 
such things — " 

"I am sorry to say it," I replied, 
"but I am afraid Miss Lambert does like 
to speak of such things. That is the 
[45] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

second suit of underwear for which she 
has secured money this week to my 
knowledge." 

"Impossible!" said the old man and 
I was sorry for him. 

It's a distressing thing to see poison 
poured into the sweet spring of ^charity. 
A long time would elapse before he 
would yield to another request for aid, 
however worthy, and I knew it. 

"I am glad you warned me, sir," he 
said, stiffly. "I shall be more careful 
in the future." 

In the next two weeks I was called 
on the telephone or written to or dis- 
turbed by personal visits no less than a 
dozen times by people who had been 
approached by Miss Lambert. In all 
cases they were distinctly pleased with 
themselves, glad to have been of ser- 
vice to a friend of mine, and such a 
delightful friend! They would be glad 
to hear more about her, and to be al- 
lowed to help again if I thought it nec- 
[46] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

essary. It was very distressing that 
so attractive and cultivated a woman 
should be compelled to seek aid — and 
in a matter of such delicacy — and so 
forth. Thus the conversation started, 
and generally it ended by an aggrieved 
and insulted individual's stamping out 
of my study, convinced that in some way 
I had been responsible for the perpetra- 
tion of a fraud upon him. 

The climax came at the regular Mon- 
day morning meeting of the ministers 
of our denomination. Dawson of the 
Third Church came up to tell me how 
glad he was to have been of help to 
Miss Lambert in her difficulty, when 
Thornton of Pacific Avenue Church over- 
heard him. 

"Did she go to you, too.'*" he de- 
manded of Dawson, and his big laugh 
rang out boisterously. "Why she 
caught Smith of Park Avenue, and 
Edmunds. They contributed a set of 
lingerie each and goodness knows 
[47] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

how many others have done the same 
thing. 

"Gentlemen!'* he shouted, and 
pounded on a table. "Will all the 
brethren who have been visited by 
Miss Lambert, a friend of our Brother 
— Jones (naming me) please hold up 
their right hands." 

A dozen hands went up, some of 
them belonging to the leading pastors 
of the city. I blushed to the roots of 
my hair, and attempted to be heard, but 
Thornton's big voice made it impos- 
sible. 

"I am authorized to say for Brother 
Jones that all of you — you members of 
the Lambert Lingerie Club — will lunch 
today at the Pritchard House at his 
expense." 

A roar of applause greeted the an- 
nouncement. For a rough and tumble, 
rowdy lot — get them off by them- 
selves — nothing can equal a crowd of 
preachers; and when it comes to eating! 
[48] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

— That luncheon, I believe, cost me 
something like eleven dollars. I entered 
that also on the Lambert account, and 
that week, to my intense relief, the 
police, to whom I had reported her case, 
informed me that she had left the city. 

There were others in the city far 
better known than I, men whose names 
could command an entree almost any- 
where in the country. These continued 
to hear of Miss Lambert as she pro- 
gressed on her travels. Friends of theirs 
in other cities, or other pastors in our 
denomination would write to say that 
Miss Lambert had called upon them, 
and that they had been glad to provide 
for her necessities. Sometimes it was 
text-books that she wanted, sometimes 
underwear, her requests depending gen- 
erally upon the season. Text-books in 
summer; underwear in winter; under- 
wear in the north, and text-books in 
the milder south. Altogether she must 
have travelled thousands of miles in 
[49] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

the next two years, using the same 
stories with which she had first prevailed 
upon us. But apparently she had for- 
gotten my name, at least no one ever 
wrote to me about her. 

And then suddenly I returned to my 
office after a summer vacation to find 
the desk piled high with mail. x4Lmong 
the letters was this: 

" Dear Dr. Jones, — It is seldom that 
I have an opportunity to do a kindness 
which afforded me so much pleasure as 
my little experience with your friend Miss 
Lambert to-day. She is, of course, a 
stranger in the city, and I was greatly 
touched hy her need. May I add also 
that she appealed to me as an exceedingly 
cultured and charming woman, one of 
the most charming whom I have ever met. 
You may not recall me, but I was for- 
merly an occasional attendant at your 
church, and two years ago you conducted 
my dear wife's funeral. 
[50] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

"Can you tell me anything more about 
Miss Lambert?'^ 

Could I? As I sat there with that 
letter before me, all the trials and trib- 
ulations and wretchedness of spirit which 
had come to me as the gift of Miss 
Lambert paraded one after another be- 
fore my mind. My spirit of charity was 
at rather low ebb, anyway — whose is 
not when he has just been haled out of 
the woods to face another year's hard 
work? — and before I had finished that 
rather bitter review I was in the right 
mood to dictate a very unministerial 
letter. Fortunately my stenographer 
was a little late in arriving that morning, 
and before she put in appearance I had 
calmed myself to this point: 

"My dear Mr. Rogers, — I regret to 
note by the postmark how long a time your 
letter has awaited my return from the 
country. It must have arrived soon after 
[51] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

I left for my vacation. I trust you will 
"pardon this delay, therefore, 

"/ remember you very pleasantly, and 
shall hope to see you when you are in the 
city again. I regret that I cannot ex- 
press the same sentiment in regard to 
Miss Lambert. My experience with her 
and that of my friends, has been exceed- 
ingly unfortunate. To be perfectly frank 
with you. Miss Lambert, is not an honest 
woman. She is a college graduate, tal- 
ented, and as you say, exceedingly attrac- 
tive. Her offending is therefore more 
grievous, because she might so easily make 
a good living and an honest living. I 
know of few women better equipped to do 
so. Yet she has formed this fatal habit 
of deceit which has been so long with her 
as to become almost a disease. She would 
rather steal than work. 

" I do not say that she is hopeless: the 

Scriptures, I believe, record the case of 

one woman, similarly attractive, out of 

whom were cast seven devils. Miss Lam- 

[52] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

bert might be rehabilitated in like manner. 
But I am compelled to say that unless she 
has changed greatly since my last experi- 
ence with her your safest course will be 
to hand her over to the police,^' 

The mail was very heavy that day, 
and there were a number of visitors. 
When I went to the church the next 
morning a carriage stood in front of my 
office door, and as I entered the office 
a man rose and spoke to me. He 
was clean-shaven, well-dressed, and 
apparently about thirty-five years of 
age. 

"I am Mr. Rogers," he said. 

"I remember you very well," I 
answered, I have just come back from 
my vacation, and found your letter only 
yesterday morning." 

**It is about that I want to speak to 
you. Rather I want to thank you. 
You have been of very great service 
to me. Doctor." 

[53] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

"Oh don't mention it Mr. Rogers, 
it was jiothing, really — " 

"Pardon me, Doctor; it was every- 
thing. It was the mention of your name 
that first caused me to see Miss Lam- 
bert. I was very busy that morning; 
I perhaps should have allowed my assis- 
tant to turn her away but for that — " 

A terrible intimation of what was to 
come crept over me: 

"You got my letter.^" I faltered. 

"No, no letter. When you did not 
reply I came to the conclusion that you 
must be on your vacation. But by that 
time I really needed no information 
from you about Miss Lambert. I had 
discovered for myself more than you 
could ever tell me — that she is the 
sweetest and purest and finest little 
woman in the world." 

"You mean—" 

"That we were married a week ago 
yesterday. I should have been glad to 
have had you perform the ceremony, 
[54] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

but Miss Lambert — or, rather Mrs. 
Rogers — loves the country. No city 
church nor city minister, she said — 
just some quiet stone church away in 
the country — " 

I did my very best to look happy; 
I murmured some conventional congrat- 
ulation and wrung his hand. But the 
dreadful horror of that letter was upon 
me: the thought of it stalking him about 
on his honeymoon, being forwarded after 
him from place to place, and finally 
leaping upon him in the first hour of 
their home life together made me fairly 
sick. I could hardly wait for him to 
go; it seemed as though he would linger 
on forever shaking my hand and thank- 
ing me for his happiness. At last the 
door shut, and in the same instant I 
landed in the outer oflace beside the desk 
of my stenographer. 

"Miss Emerson, please put on your 
hat and go to the post office at once. 
It is very important. See the post- 
[55] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

master personally; no one else will do. 
That letter to Mr. Rogers — it must 
not be delivered; ask him as a special 
favor to hold it until I can call and 
explain — " 

"But I haven't mailed it yet, Doctor." 

"What?" I stammered. "Are you 
sure.^" 

"Yes. There were so many letters 
yesterday that I didn't get to it. I 
just signed it, a few minutes ago." 

I sank into the nearest chair, pretty 
nearly exhausted. "Give it to me!" 
I said — "and the carbon, too." And 
with my own hands I tore both into a 
hundred fragments and threw them into 
the wastebasket. 

I have never seen The Lingerie Lady 
since; and it may be that no one in 
the world but me knows that she and 
the respected wife of a leading citizen in 
one of our suburbs are the same woman. 
But I know. And should her husband 
die it would not surprise me to find her 
[56] 



THE LINGERIE LADY 

again some morning at my study door 
waiting to tell me that his estate had 
proved valueless, that she must return 
to teaching, and that she would appre- 
ciate the loan of a few dollars — for 
text-books, if it should happen to be 
summer; for suitable underwear if she 
should come in winter. The love of the 
game was deeply embedded in her soul. 
And in all the world I have never met 
any woman so equipped to play it well 
— by her manner, her voice and — her 
eyes. 



[57] 



Ill 



THE VOICE OF THE 
LORD 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

THE THIRD OF THE EXPERIENCES 

F I did not think that some good 
brother had already done so I should 
-^ write an article some day called 
"The Minister's Mail." But I am quite 
certain that it has already been done; 
I have an indistinct recollection of 
having read the article myself and of 
laughing at this letter, which was quoted 
as having arrived in one morning's 
mail: 

"Dear Sir, — I shall he at church 
next Sunday morning and will put one 
dollar in the contribution box if you will 
preach from this text, 'And he took him 
by the tail!''' 

[61] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

Almost any minister could write a 
similar article, and it would be very 
rich in humor and in pathos — and in 
emotions of various sorts, a tangled bit 
of grand opera mingling notes from many 
discordant heart strings. There would 
be requests for aid and confessions of 
doubt; pleas for advice in love affairs 
and domestic tribulation; an occasional 
word of commendation and letters of 
criticism, more than occasional, with 
now and then a fragment of denuncia- 
tion or threat. There are a hundred 
letters in my collection, any one of 
which, followed up, would have led 
into the heart of an adventure. And 
some of them were followed up. 

"I wonder who that is from," my 
wife said, as she laid the mail on 
the breakfast table one morning. It 
was a lavender letter of rich, fine 
material, addressed in a woman's hand- 
writing. 

"We'll see," I answered, and opened 
[62] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

it. There was neither address, nor date 
line nor signature. It read simply: 

" Tomorrow at eight I shall he there. 
Be ye ready." 

"Who is that from," said my wife 
again, this time with a little added 
emphasis, for even a minister's wife is 
human and a woman. 

"You know as much about it as I 
do, my dear. I never saw the hand- 
writing before. Are we to be home 
tomorrow at eight .f^" 

"You have to go to that reception 
later in the evening." 

"That's all right," I answered. 
"She'll be here before I have to leave. 
And we'll see — if she's good looking 
maybe I'll take her along." 

"That's a good idea" said my wife, 
and laughed. But I noticed she kept 
the letter. 

I was hard at work in the study the 
next morning when the maid brought in 
a card and laid it on my desk. The 
[63] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

first name and middle initial meant 
nothing to me; but the surname is one 
that has an honored place in *our lit- 
erature. In one corner was inscribed, 
in the handwriting of the letter, "The 
Voice of the Lord." 

"Show her in,'* I said; and a mo- 
ment later she entered, a woman, tall 
and with a certain dignity of face and 
manner. She advanced to the middle of 
the room and stood silent, her eyes 
fixed on my face, until the maid's foot- 
steps had pattered off down the hall 
and she knew that we were entirely 
alone. 

In the interval I had plenty of time to 
study her features. Her hair was grey, 
though she couldn't have been more 
than thirty-seven or eight: her fore- 
head was high and fine, her cheeks a 
trifle drawn; and her chin, though well 
formed, bore just a suggestion of in- 
stability. But it was her eyes that 
told the story. There was the weird, 
[64] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

unwholesome gleam in them that can 
be kindled by intoxicants or by un- 
bridled emotion, or that may be the 
signal of a mind undone. She had 
poured oil of some unholy sort into her 
life's fire; it flamed fitfully and lurid 
through the windows of her soul. 

"I am here," she announced. Her 
voice was full and deep, as though much 
employed in public speaking. 

"You have me somewhat at a dis- 
advantage," I began. 

But she had evidently marked out 
the channel in which the conversation 
was to be conducted, and she would 
not be tempted from it. 

"You know me, though you may not 
admit it. You have heard of my grand- 
father," — and she spoke a name much 
honored in our literature. "I write, 
also," she continued. "You have seen 
my articles in the magazines." 

Being thus reminded, I did recall 
[65] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

having seen her name once or twice in 
some of the lesser periodicals, and said 
so. She seemed pleased. 

"I am a great writer," she said. 

I smiled a little, and she was quick 
to notice it. 

"You laugh, but I tell you I could 
be famous — more famous than my 
grandfather. I know it — I know the 
power that is in me. But I have aban- 
doned writing; I have said *Get thee 
behind me!' I cannot write and be 
true to my mission." 

**Your mission?" I questioned. 
"What is your mission .f^" 

"The Lord has commanded me to 
restore prophecy upon the earth. As 
Nathan appeared before David, as John 
the Baptist appeared before Herod, so 
I appear before the powerful of the 
earth. I am The Voice of the Lord; 
I appear before you. I say: 'Thus 
saith the Lord. Thou art untrue to 
[66] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

thy trust. Why is thy preaching not 
my preaching? Why hast thou proved 
unfaithful to the truth?'" 

By this time I knew that I had to deal 
with one of the religious cranks who 
are part of the minister's problem. 
Nearly every week some one of them 
comes to urge his right to be heard at 
the Sunday morning service or to pre- 
sent some obscure passage of Scripture 
as containing a new revelation too long 
neglected. 

"I have no doubt the Lord speaks to 
you," I said. **But he speaks to me 
also and to every one of his children. 
I, too, am commissioned to proclaim his 
gospel on the earth: I must speak his 
message as I understand it. I am glad 
to have met you." 

But she would not be turned aside. 

"You say you are a true minister," 

she said, her voice rising into sharp, 

bitter scorn. "Show me proof of your 

ministry. Your Master healed the sick; 

[67] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

do you heal? He said, 'These signs 
shall follow them that believe: they 
shall cast out devils: they shall lay 
hands on the sick and they shall recover/ 
Show signs: The Voice of the Lord 
says to you, *Show signs.'" 

"I will show signs of my ministry 
when you show signs of yours," I re- 
plied. 

"What do you mean?" 

Her voice was more shrill; she was 
working herself fast toward hysteria 
and I was eager to have her gone. As 
I answered I stepped over to the door 
and opened it 

"Why don't you quote the whole 
of the Lord's promise?" I demanded. 
"This sign too, he says, shall follow 
them that believe: *if they drink any 
deadly thing it shall not hurt them.' 
There is a drug store across the street. 
Come: we will go over. You believe 
that if you drink any deadly thing it 
will not hurt you, don't you?" 
[68] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

She opened her mouth as though to 
reply, and then with a savage glance 
brushed by me to the front door. There 
she turned for an instant: 

"Hypocrite! Blasphemer!" she fairly 
shrieked. "I leave you; but you shall 
yet hear The Voice of the Lord. You 
shall hear me. You shall obey — " 
and so, turning every dozen steps to 
hurl her threats back at me, she made 
her way down to the street. Our house 
stood a long way back and as she 
reached the sidewalk she raised her 
right arm above her head and shouted 
to me: "The Lord will proclaim me 
before the city. He will make the 
people acknowledge me; he will make 

you." 

"When he does," I thought, "it will 
be a much colder day than it is now." 
And noting with gratitude that the 
street was deserted and our little scene 
apparently unobserved I shut the door 
and went back to work. 
[69] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

The next morning there was another 
lavender letter in the mail. 

"You cast me out last night," it said, 
"even as the priests cast out the proph- 
ets of old. But The Voice of the, Lord 
will be heard. The Lord will reveal me 
to the city, and you shall be the instru- 
ment of that revelation." 

"A strange case," I said, and tossed 
the letter over to my wife. "She might 
have been a brilliant woman — writes 
well and all that — and she's sure the 
Lord is on her side. And I am to be 
*the instrument of the revelation,' 
whatever that means." 

"Whatever it means," said my wife, 
"I think you better have me around the 
next time any prophetesses come to 
call." 

"You can't make me feel bad that 
way," I replied. "Take her, my dear; 
she is yours. I'm going to write her and 
say, *Dear Madam: Please address 
all future communications to my wife.'" 
[70] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

"You needn't write her at all," said 
the dearest woman in the world. "Let 
her alone; you'll probably never hear 
of her again." 

But for once the dearest woman was 
wrong. The letters kept coming for 
some weeks — one every morning — 
each reaffirming her divine commission 
and warning me that some day I should 
be the means of establishing her claim 
before the world. She became a fa- 
miliar institution in our household. "The 
Voice of the Lord," the children called 
her; and when her letters ceased coming, 
as they did after a month or so, we 
rather missed them. 

I had found out something about her 
in the meantime. Edgerton of the Third 
Church told me. He was probably the 
best known minister in the city, a fine 
elderly man of national reputation. 

"She came to see me several years 
ago," he said. "It was after a big 
missionary convention here, and one of 
[71] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

our women had read a really remark- 
able paper. I forget the subject now, 
but it was the talk of the convention, 
and the newspapers commented upon 
it. The next morning your friend called 
on me and introduced herself. 

"'Did you hear that paper by Mrs. 
Blank yesterday.^' she asked. 

"I told her I had and thought it was 
fine. 

"*I wrote it' she said. 'I write most 
of the papers for these wealthy women 
that have more money than brains.' 

"I was amazed and somewhat dis- 
gusted. 

"*What you say may be true,' I told 
her, *but if it is the betrayal of their 
confidence does not commend you to 
mine.' 

"Then she told me a good deal about 
herself. She is brilliant and of good 
family. But her people have long since 
cast her ojff. You see, she is an opium 
fiend." 

[72] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

After the letters ceased coming I lost 
sight of The Voice of the Lord and she 
dropped finally out of memory. Once, 
indeed, I saw an article in one of the 
magazines signed by her name; it was 
a rather bitter attack upon the churches 
because of their indifference to the 
appeals of those in want. Once I heard 
that she had been arrested in a distant 
city for interrupting religious meetings, 
and the papers devoted some little space 
to a half -crazed interview which she had 
given and signed by a weird pseudonym, 
which she called her prophetic name. 
But I paid little attention to it. 

Almost a year later, in passing a little 
church a couple of blocks from my own 
I was attracted by the sound of singing 
inside. The church had been vacant 
for some months, the congregation hav- 
ing moved further up town, away from 
it; and it had been offered, I knew, 
for sale. I was on my way to my own 
service and was too busy to stop; but 
[73] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

later I inquired of our janitor, who was 
my source of information on any matter 
connected with the neighborhood. 

"What's going on in the httle church, 
Pete?" I asked him. 

"Some woman's started a rehgion 
there," he answered. "Jehovasha, she 
calls herself, or something like that; 
and say, Doctor, she's got 'em goin', 
too." 

"What do you mean, 'got 'em goin'?'' 

"It's crowded every Sunday. They 
claim she's got some power to do mir- 
acles." He looked at me quizzically. 
"Say, Doctor, you don't think there is 
any miracles these days now do you?" 

"I don't see why there can't be, 
Pete. The Lord hasn't lost any of his 
power. Tell me more about Jehovasha 
— is that the name?" 

"That's what she calls herself, sir, 

but I'm thinkin' that it's a fake name. 

Like as not she's a married woman or 

got somethin' else crooked in her past. 

[74] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

No one knows where she comes from or 
who she is. Least I ain't found none 
that does. We was diseussin' it the 
other night over at O'Keefe's — beg 
pardon, sir, over at the Y. M. C. A., 
sir — and someone said as how she just 
dropped down here one Sunday and 
began preachin' on the street, sayin' 
that she was the true preacher and all 
other preachers was fakes and she'd 
show 'em up, and come unto her all 
that was sore at the churches: and if 
anybody was sick, come along too 
because the doctors was fakes also 
and devils. She would cure 'em and 
nothing charged, only glorify the Lord 
and each one chip in whatever he 
wanted. And while she was preachin' 
someone came up with a crutch, and 
says: 'I'm lame and the doctors can't 
do nothin' and if you got the goods the 
way you say, why cure me, and if you 
don't cure me why you're a fake.' 
"She sort o' looked at him queer 
[75] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

and her eyes was flashin' and she 
says: — 

***God has sent you as a proof for 
the wicked. In the name of the Al- 
mighty chuck that crutch!' 

**I wasn't there myself, but O'Keefe 
swears he seen it. The feller sort of 
straightened up and shouts: 

***I'm cured; glory to God!' 

"Then he chucks the crutch, and 
everybody shouts and begins to throw 
quarters and nickels at Jehovasha, and 
the kids run in to get the money, and 
they was a fight. But next Sunday she 
started goin' in the little church, and 
they's been a crowd there ever since." 

The next morning I opened the paper 

to find a story about Jehovasha on the 

front page and a flash-light photograph 

of the inside of her church, crowded 

with worshippers. She herself was 

shown as merely a little blue haziness 

behind the pulpit. The story was one 

of those overdrawn, sensational tales 
[76] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

which find their way to the front page 
on Monday mornings, when there is 
no news in the world. It told of "Je- 
hovasha's" sudden appearance in the 
city and of her first ** Miracle," which 
Pete had described though this ac- 
count was not so picturesque, on the 
whole, as his. No one knew her origin, 
it said, nor her true name. To all 
inquiries she replied merely that she 
was Jehovasha, the prophetess of the 
Lord, and that she had been sent to 
restore true religion to the city and to 
call the ministers and the churches to 
repentance. 

After that there was something in 
the papers about her on almost every 
Monday morning. One Sunday she had 
held a special meeting for cripples and 
after a half-crazed exhortation, which 
had brought the whole congregation to 
a pitch of near insanity, she had shouted 
that the spirit of the Lord was de- 
scending upon them in healing power, 
[77] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

and that whoever would lift up his 
arms and glorify Jehovah would be 
healed. An indescribable pandemonium 
had ensued. Men had shouted and 
women had cried; crutches had been 
thrown towards the platform, and some 
who had not walked unaided for years, 
hypnotized by the excitement of the 
occasion and raised into veritable frenzy, 
had danced up and down in the aisles. 
It was such a scene as one may witness 
at the older shrine; such scenes as I 
have beheld in Dowie's Tabernacle and 
in a dozen other places. The next morn- 
ing her "twelve apostles," as she termed 
a dozen of her followers, were busy 
nailing crutches and braces of various 
sorts to the walls of the church. After 
that her little tabernacle became too 
small for the crowds that sought admit- 
tance. They overflowed into the street, 
and sometimes she stood in a window 
and hurled her piercing sentences down 
among them. 

[78] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

She had a pecuHarly alert sense of 
news value. There was always some- 
thing in her sermons that the papers 
could seize upon and for several months 
she was a regular help in the time of 
their Monday-edition trouble. She was 
bitter against the doctors and the 
preachers; and as time went on her ex- 
coriations became rather galling to some 
of the more sensitive brethren of the 
city. Two of them who had been most 
severely handled by her at length pre- 
vailed upon the police to have her 
locked up as a public nuisance and dis- 
turber of the peace. 

I heard about it Sunday night from 
Pete, and it seemed to me a most un- 
fortunate action. Whatever her vaga- 
ries, or those of any other speaker, I 
have never relished the idea of police 
interference in the matter of free speech. 
Moreover, there was no surer way to 
give form and substance to her move- 
ment than by awarding her the crown 
[79] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

of the martyr. All her charges against 
the churches would gain redoubled power 
with the unthinking in the light of this 
apparent attempt to quiet her by per- 
secution. 

It was in this frame of mind that I 
went home Sunday night. Monday 
morning I picked up the paper to find 
her name as usual on the front page, 
and — to my surprise and consterna- 
tion — my own linked with it. 

From the old, yellowed newspaper 
clipping before me as I write I copy 
the headlines: 

JEHOVASHA ARRESTED 

SPECTACULAR PROPHETESS JAILED 

FOR DISTURBING PEACE 

SAYS THE LORD WILL SEND DR. JONES 

AND DR. EDGERTON TO DELIVER HER 

PRAYS AND SINGS IN CELL, AND 

PROMISES TO BE DELIVERED THIS 

MORNING 

[80] 

\ 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

The reporters were at the telephone 
before I had finished my breakfast. I 
put them off with evasive answers and 
got Edgerton on the wire. 

"What do you think about it?" I 
said. 

"It's a shame she was ever locked 
up," he replied. "The woman's a drug 
fiend and probably insane, but she's 
harmless." 

"Just what I think; but what are we 
going to do?" 

He hesitated a moment and then his 
great laugh rang out heartily. "I don't 
see how we can let the Lord fall down 
on his promises," he said. "I'll meet you 
at the police station in half an hour." 

So we two delivered her as she had 
announced that we should. The warden 
brought her out into his own office. As 
she stepped through the door, there was 
something familiar in her features — in 
her proud carriage and the uncanny 
gleam in her eye. I recognized her sud- 
[81] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

denly as the Voice of The Lord, the 
woman who for a month had written 
me daily letters. She was older and 
worn, and the finger of death had placed 
its mark upon her brow. In the drawn, 
discolored corners of her mouth, and the 
sunken places about her eyes there were 
the unmistakable signs that the drug 
had almost finished its evil work. But 
her spirit was apparently unbroken. 

We talked with her a long time, 
Edgerton and I. We told her that we 
had come to deliver her because we be- 
lieved she had been mistreated, but 
that we could not agree to go on her 
bond unless she was willing to leave the 
city and return to her relatives. At 
first she refused but when we made as 
though to go away, she broke down and 
throwing herself upon us, pled with us 
not to leave her in jail. So we arranged 
for her bail and adjusted matters with 
the police officers, the district attorney 
and the two brethren, who were willing 
[82] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

to forget the charge they had preferred. 
Edgerton agreed to see her to a train 
and to telegraph her people in the city, 
where her name is and always has been 
an honored one. 

She had stopped crying and while 
we were busy with the telephone, and 
the legal papers, her eyes followed me 
from place to place, a strange look in 
them that seemed, in spite of her fear, 
something almost approaching a smile. 
Finally she spoke: 

"I won, didn't I, Doctor?" 

"What do you mean?" I asked. 

"I told you the Lord would glorify 
me and that you would be the instru- 
ment of my glory. You are, aren't you? 
A week from now I'll be forgotten 
around here, I suppose. But tomorrow" 
— she gave a little fitful chuckle — "to- 
morrow the papers will say that my 
prophecy was fulfilled, that the Lord 
sent Dr. Jones and Dr. Edgerton to 
deliver me. Won't they?" 
[83] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

"No, they won't," I answered — "not 
if Edgerton and I have any influence 
with the city editors they won't. They 
won't say anything more about you — 
ever." 

She was silent for a time, until Edger- 
ton stepped over to help her on with 
her coat. Grasping it with one hand, 
she turned and raised the other above 
her head, facing me with a pathetic rem- 
nant of something like her old time fire. 

"The Voice of the Lord!" she said. 
"He sent you to deliver me, to be the 
instrument of my glory. If you don't 
believe me, ask him. When you pray 
to him, ask him. He will tell you I 
was sent to restore prophecy upon the 
earth." 

As I looked at her, her shrunken 
arm quivering in the air, her every 
feature lined with the handwriting of 
death, my heart was in my throat. 

"You ask him," I answered, "You 
will see him first." 

[84] 



THE VOICE OF THE LORD 

I stood watching her a long way down 
the street. Leaning lifelessly upon Ed- 
gerton's arm, she walked with him to 
the corner, where they climbed into a 
cab. Thus she passed forever out of 
my sight. 



[85] 



IV 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 




She Came to Sob Out Her Perplexity ix My Study 




THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

THE FOURTH OF THE EXPERIENCES 

ANY times I have thought 
about her since, and won- 
dered whether she had the 
courage to keep it up. 

She was one of the thousands who 
make up the ordinary run of women 
whom ministers meet — one of those 
good women, undistinguished even in 
their troubles and their sin. They are 
the Marthas, "cumbered with much serv- 
ing"; the Marys, who are the keepers 
of the world's faith; the widows, who, 
out of their want, cast into the treasury 
of service all that they have; and the 
other Marys, who are remembered grate- 
fully by mankind because they sink 
their whole existence in the life and 
development of their sons. These, and 
[89] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

not the women whose stories have been 
told in the preceding articles, are the 
usual companions of the pastor's daily 
travel. There are a thousand good 
women to make smooth the path of the 
servant of the Lord for every one who 
would cause him to stumble. Were 
it not so, the ministry and the world 
it ministers to would be very dreary 
places. 

A glance through the diary of a single 
year recalls so many of those who 
have cast their little burdens upon the 
preacher, as the Lord's local represen- 
tative, that one hardly knows whom 
to select. There was Miss Dickson, 
for example, who taught six days a week 
in the high school, and one day in our 
Sunday school. She was earnest and 
attractive and wonderfully good — but 
when her oldest boy pupil, who was 
nineteen, persuaded her that she was 
the only woman in the world who could 
make his life happy, she came to sob 
[90] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

out her perplexity in my study. She 
did love him — at least she was sure she 
did; at least she thought she did — but 
she was thirty-three — I knew the folly 
of it and tried to explain. I had had a 
friend, a boy, who had married a woman 
nearly twice his age; I knew what their 
life had been. But in spite of all I 
could do Miss Dickson and her pupil 
drifted nearer and nearer the rapids, 
until the town began to talk, and the 
parents of the boy came to me also to 
protest angrily that he was being lured 
and preyed upon by a designing woman. 
I invited them all to dinner one night 
— Miss Dickson, her boy pupil, my 
friend who had married a woman twice 
his age and the woman herself, who 
legally was still his wife, though the 
love that they thought was divine had 
long since given place to something that 
was almost hate. That was a very 
peculiar dinner — I remember it very 
well. 

[91] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

There was Mrs. Emmons, whose hus- 
band had left her twenty thousand dol- 
lars — and the plausible gentleman who 
sought to acquire it. It cost me no 
little trouble to discover that gentle- 
man's previous record, but I felt 
repaid on the afternoon when they 
both sat in my study together while, 
in my best pulpit voice, I read it to 
them. 

I remember Elsie Maitland, who came, 
quivering and tearful, to tell me that 
her mother objected to Jack, that Jack 
was the best man in the world and that 
they were going to be married. Mrs. 
Maitland came the next day to say that 
Elsie was not yet of age and that if 
they ever did carry out their threat to 
elope she would have Jack arrested, and 
didn't I think she was right .^^ But that 
very day Jack, and Elsie made good 
their threat, and that night Mrs. Mait- 
land rushed back to me with a telegram: 
''We are married. Coming home to- 
[92] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

morrow on Number 42. Won't you 
forgive? Elsie." Number Forty-two ar- 
rived at four o'clock the next afternoon, 
and Mrs. Maitland was on the plat- 
form with a deputy sheriff. But I had 
met the train at Roxbury, which was 
twelve miles up the track. 

I remember them all, Heaven bless 
them. They make up the humor and 
the pathos, the romance and the bitter 
trial, and the eternal worth-whileness 
of the minister's lot. But their stories 
do not belong in this article. I was 
speaking, as I recall, of The Woman 
Divided, and I couldn't help wondering 
whether she had had the courage to 
keep it up. 

I met him several times before I 
met her. He was big and self confident 
and declamatory, even in his clothes. 
Some one introduced me to him at the 
horse show, that annual torment for 
which one of my well-to-do parishioners 
sent me tickets that I felt bound to use, 
[93] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

and he astonished me by announcing 
that he intended to take a "box" in my 
church. I gasped, but recovered my- 
self in time to assure him that he would 
be welcome. Later I learned that he 
had recently moved into the biggest 
house>in town, having made his money 
late in life, out of some patented kind 
of soap. The next Sunday, just after 
the first hymn, I saw him at the rear of 
the church, apparently arguing with the 
usher, who conducted him, at length, 
down the aisle and seated him at the 
very front. He looked up at me and 
waved his hand affably, but I was busy 
with the hymn book and pretended not 
to see. 

At the close of the service he was the 
first to speak to me. 

"Fine, Doctor; simply splendid!" 
His voice boomed out like the biggest 
pipe on the organ. "I want to come 
here regular; wish you'd put up my 
name for membership. And I'd like to 
[94] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

have you come to my house, sir. When 
will you come?" 

I told him I should be glad to call. 
He pressed the invitation at each suc- 
ceeding service but for several weeks I 
was so busy with other duties that I 
could not find time to redeem my prom- 
ise. Then one morning I missed him 
from his place at the front; and, thus 
reminded of my neglect, I determined 
to make my call that week. 

A butler opened the door — the only 
butler, I believe, that our little city 
boasted — and I was ushered into a 
reception room finished in mahogany 
and crowded with gold furniture. The 
butler disappeared upstairs and returned 
after a few minutes to report that Mr. 
Dives was absent from the city, but 
that Mrs. Dives would be down. It 
was the first time I had heard that there 
was a Mrs. Dives. 

A little later her footsteps pattered 
softly on the padded stairway and then 
[95] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

stopped suddenly, commanded by a 
querulous whisper that was shrill enough 
to reach my own ears. 

"Mother, you can't go down: you 
don't look fit." 

It was the voice of a girl, apparently 
the daughter of the house. I could 
sense the mother's hesitation and self- 
consciousness: she stopped, took a step 
back, and then, as though acting with 
unaccustomed resolution, continued 
down. Even as she entered the room 
I could hear the voice above complain- 
ing to somebody that mother looked 
"perfectly awful," and that she couldn't 
imagine what could have "got into her." 

I suspect that she knew I had heard, 
for her face was flushed and embar- 
rassed as she stepped through the door 
and held out her hand to me. She was 
a little woman whose clothes fitted her 
badly. Her hair was drawn tight across 
her forehead, but there was a wistful 
sort of tenderness in her face which was 
[96] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

attractive. I remember thinking that a 
little care on the part of someone that 
understood such things might have made 
her very attractive. 

The hand that she held out to me 
was large in proportion to the rest of 
her body; but it was well formed. 

"Mr. Dives is away," she began, and 
stopped as though not quite sure what 
to say next. 

"I am very glad of the opportunity 
to meet you," I replied. "I have not 
yet had a chance to welcome you to 
our services." 

I thought she might say something in 
explanation, and indeed she started to 
but ended with an embarrassed little 
laugh. I changed the subject quickly. 
They had been in the city only a few 
months, she told me, having come from 
the little out-of-the-way town where 
her husband's factory had been located. 
He had sold his interests, which had 
kept them confined and so here they 
[97] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

were, in a big house, realizing the dreams 
of their youth. 

Once guided into these more familiar 
channels the conversation ran smoothly, 
with now and then a bit of sparkle. 
Indeed, my estimate of Mrs. Dives' 
charm and intellectual ability grew as 
our talk proceeded. She was really a 
very unusual woman and I thought 
again it was a pity that no one had ever 
taught her to advertise her charm in 
her appearance. 

As I prepared to leave, I ventured 
to repeat the hope that she might be 
present with her husband at our Sunday 
services; and again, suddenly, her face 
clouded. The sparkle died out of her 
manner; she became somehow dull and 
reserved. It was as complete a trans- 
formation as I have ever seen. The 
woman who had charmed me by her 
vivacious intelligence vanished, and left 
in her place the timid creature who had 
stood shrinking in the doorway. 
[98] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

"I should like to come," she said. 
"I want — " and then suddenly — "Doc- 
tor, may I come to see you sometime at 
your study?" 

"Assuredly," I answered; "come 
Monday morning." 

"Thanks — thank you — thank you 
so much," she stammered. I wondered 
what she meant. 

Monday morning I looked up from 
my desk to see a carriage draw up be- 
fore the door, and after a moment she 
descended from it, dressed as I had 
seen her at the house, with the addition 
of a hat strangely unbecoming. As I 
watched her walk toward the door I 
wondered which woman was coming 
to me — the self-reliant, clear-thinking 
woman of whom I had caught a glimpse 
at the house, whose keen mind — so 
rumor said and so I could well believe 
— had planned out her husband's suc- 
cess; or the shrinking, timid creature 
who had drawn back within herself 
[99] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

when I suggested that she come with 
him to church. 

I had not long to wonder; the half- 
apologetic knock with which she an- 
nounced her arrival testified that she 
came in fear and trembling. I sought 
to increase her confidence with my 
welcome, and made her as comfortable 
as I could. 

**I'm going to help you," I said, when 
she had settled herself and while she 
was casting about in her mind as to how 
she would begin. "I am going to tell 
you why you came to me." 

She looked at me half fearfully, half 
gratefully. "Oh, if you only could," 
she murmured. 

*'You want to tell me that you can't 
come to church with your husband 
because he doesn't want you to come." 

It was a long, dangerous chance to 

take, but I knew instantly by the look 

in her eyes that I was not mistaken. 

But the almost brutal frankness of my 

[100] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

statement shocked her into pained pro- 
test. 

"You mustn't say that, Doctor. Mr. 
Dives — my husband — is very, very 
kind to me." 

"Kind — surely," I answered. "You 
mean that he allows you all the money 
that you need. But why shouldn't he; 
you helped him to make it." 

She was silent and I pressed the 
point. 

"Didn't you?" 

"Yes, I did." It was the other woman 
asserting herself, the woman who had 
charmed me by the clearness of her 
thought at our first meeting. "I did 
help him," she repeated. "He couldn't 
have done it without me. He bought 
the formula for the soap from a peddler, 
but I made it up on my stove in the 
kitchen. Hours and hours I stirred it 
in those first years before the factory 
came. That's why my hands are like 
this — look at them," and she pushed 
[101] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

them out toward me. "The stirring 
did that. And now — " her voice fal- 
tered and broke a little, "and now he 
says they're too big — " 

It was the other woman back again, 
timid, cringing, ready almost to cry. 

"And he won't take you to church," 
I said, "because he doesn't think you 
look well enough. And your daughter 
patronizes you, and you're tired of it all, 
and wish you had never helped him to 
succeed. Is that it.^^" 

I knew it was a rough speech. I had 
no mind to have her crying in the study. 
The other woman in her — the strong 
aggressive one — would resent that at- 
tack upon her husband, I thought; and so 
it proved. She straightened, suddenly, 
rose and faced me with real dignity. 

"I did not come here to have my 
husband insulted. Doctor Jones. You 
do not understand. Good morning." 

She started to go, but I reached the 
door before her. 

[102] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

"Now," I said, "we can talk. I 
wanted you to say that; I wanted to 
put you in a frame of mind where I 
could talk to you. You're in that frame 
of mind now. Sit down; I can help 

you." 

For a moment I thought she would 
leave, in spite of my plea. When she 
was finally seated again the defiant look 
still held its place in her eye. She 
would not cry now, I felt sure, no matter 
what I said. 

And so I told her the truth very 
bluntly, drawing generously on my imag- 
ination, and guiding myself by her 
changing expressions, which told her 
story, had she but known it, as clearly 
as though it had been acted on a stage. 
I sketched their life together in the 
little village, where they had first 
dreamed the success that his fortunate 
discovery, and her genius, had at length 
made real. 

I went farther back than that even 
[103] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

— into her girlhood — and introduced to 
her the two spirits, the two girls, who 
had inhabited her soul. There was the 
girl who would dare anything, who led 
the crowd and counted even some of 
the boys among her followers; and there 
was the other girl, who, depressed by a 
moment of failure, would draw herself 
away into settled retirement and morbid 
introspection. I told her story, not in 
terms of her life, but in terms of the 
life of these two — the one carrying her 
husband upward upon the wings of her 
vision, the other, dormant through their 
earlier married life because of the vital- 
ity of their love and achievement, cast- 
ing over these later years an evil spirit 
of introspection and self-pity and 
neglect. 

**You are not a woman," I said. 
**You are two women. I knew it when 
I talked with you at your home. You 
were one woman when you came cring- 
ing through the doorway to meet me 
[104] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

and an entirely different woman when 
the conversation stirred the memory of 
your days of happiness and success. 
The second woman demanded much of 
your husband, and gave him much in 
return; the other shrivelled under a 
bit of fancied neglect and thereafter 
neither demanded nor gave. That's 
your trouble. You can't blame your 
husband for leaving the first woman at 
home. What you must do to be saved 
is to resurrect the other one, and, having 
done so, keep her permanently on the 
throne." 

Her eyes were wide open in amaze- 
ment. "How did you know all that?" 
she demanded. 

"You told me." 

"I.? I haven't told you anything." 

"Yes you have. Every line of it 
has written itself as plainly as could be 
on your face; I have merely read out to 
you what I saw. And I am right, am 
I not?" 

[ 105 ] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

"Yes." 

"Then you must trust me absolutely. 
You must do exactly wliat I say; you 
must carry it through no matter what 
the cost." 

Then I told her what she must do. 
At first she was incredulous; the doubt- 
ing woman in her lifted up a voice of 
protest. But I convinced her at length. 
We pored over the time-table and laid 
out her route to New York. Then I 
sent her over to the parsonage to talk 
with Mrs. Jones and to secure the ad- 
dresses of those artificers in New York 
who by means of gowns and hair-dress- 
ing and facial massage, and heaven 
knows what else, can bring back to life 
the soul of a woman that has been a 
long time dead. 

"But how shall I tell my husband.^" 
she demanded, as she was about to leave 
the study. 

"Tell him what.?^" 
"That I am going." 
[106] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

"Don't tell him," I said. "Write 
him. Just go." 

She went. I hope Heaven has for- 
given me for the deception that en- 
shrouded those next two weeks. True, 
I have never prayed to be forgiven, con- 
sidering that the end justified the means, 
but at least I have promised never to 
do it again. For they were two terrible 
weeks. 

Three days after she had gone I met 
Dives on the street. Rather, I took 
occasion to meet him. It was a nec- 
essary part of the day's work — just as 
necessary as the long letter that went 
every night to Mrs. Dives in the city, 
telling her that under no circumstances 
must she come home until I sent for 
her, and commanding her — that is the 
right word — to buy new dresses, no 
matter how tired she got or how much 
they cost. 

"Won't you and Mrs. Dives come up 
to dinner tonight.?" I said to Dives, 
[107] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

and I ought to have blushed with guilt 
at the words. 

"Thanks ever so much," he responded, 
"but Mrs. Dives is out of the city for a 
day or two. Gone to New York on a 
little pleasure trip." He said it jauntily 
— a little too jauntily, I thought. 

I went home to find another letter 
from Mrs. Dives saying that she was 
homesick and must come back. And I 
wired her sternly that if she let the weak 
woman in her creep into another letter 
I should never attempt to help her 
again. Whether that rebuke drove the 
weak woman into retirement or whether 
the wiles of the dressmaker and the 
hair-dresser had wakened the strong 
one into full life I do not know. But 
from that time her letters took on a new, 
confident, happy note which had in it 
all the joy of her earlier days, and in- 
cluded also the self-assurance of a woman 
who knows her world and feels herself 
a mistress in it. 

[108] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

I had purposely let Dives alone for 
a week, but when with her letter she 
enclosed one from him complaining be- 
cause she did not come back, I knew 
it was time to talk with him again. 

"You and Mrs. Dives are coming to 
dinner tonight," I said to him over the 
telephone. 

He was jBustered; I could read it in 
the tones of his reply. 

"Awfully kind of you. Doctor; but 
you see — The truth is Mrs. Dives 
hasn't got back yet — unexpected delay, 
you understand." 

"That's too bad," I replied. "We'd 
like to have you both; but we'll have 
you anyway. Six-thirty sharp. We'll 
count on you" — and I hung the re- 
ceiver up before he had a chance to 
refuse. 

It was a different man who dined 

with us that night. He had lost much 

of his jauntiness, and though he made 

a brave effort to maintain his usual 

[109] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

blustering good fellowship the result 
could hardly be termed a success. There 
were rings under his eyes, as though he 
had lost sleep, and the hand that reached 
out to take his cup of coffee shook a 
little. But not until late in the even- 
ing did we let the conversation drift 
to the subject which was uppermost in 
all our minds. My wife, whose general- 
ship can always be counted on in mat- 
ters of the kind, delivered the first shot. 

"We enjoy Mrs. Dives so much. She 
is perfectly charming. She is going to 
join our Ladies' Society." 

Dives could not conceal his astonish- 
ment. His wife in a Ladies' Society! 
She hadn't joined anything since the 
day she first began to stir the soap — 
he had long ago lost any thought of 
her as a social being. 

"Yes," I hastened to add, "and why 
didn't you tell us that she sang.^ She's 
going to join our choir, too." 

"She's a wonderful little woman," 
[110] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

mused my wife. '*When does she come 
back?" 

"I really don't — That is to say — 
I'm going up to New York day after 
tomorrow — yes, we've arranged to meet 
there and come back together." 

He was preparing to go. 

"You must both of you come to 
dinner when you get back," I said. 
"Mrs. Dives has told me so much 
about your life that I feel as though we 
were all very old friends." 

"She's a wonderful little woman," 
mused my wife again. 

He turned upon her with something 
like his old buoyant spirit. "She cer- 
tainly is," he said, "a perfect wonder." 

"Day after tomorrow," he had said. 
That gave me time to get my letter to 
her if I wrote it that night. And so 
I did, sitting up late to finish it and 
walking down alone through the quiet 
streets to drop it in at the post office. 
And I trembled almost as I saw it dis- 
[111] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

appear through the slot in the door; 
for there are times when even a preacher 
shrinks back at the thought of reaching 
his hand down so deep into the recesses 
of a human soul. Yet I told her the 
truth as I saw it. There is no copy 
of the letter, but I remember a part at 
least of what it said: 

"Dear Mrs. Dives, — It is time now 
to come home. As soon as you receive 
this, wire your husband that you will 
arrive on Number Forty-two and ash him 
to meet you. Do not delay; because he 
"plans to start for New York on Wednesday 
to bring you bach with him, and it is 
better, I thinh, that you should meet him 
here. 

" You are not different from many other 
sensitive women, or indeed men, for that 
matter. I have hnown many lihe you, 
whose lives were really a battlefield on 
which two natures contended for the mas- 
tery. Most poets and generals, villains 
and preachers are of that sort — most all 
[112] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

of the really worth-while folks in the world. 
You realize it now that I have pointed it 
out to you. You see that it explains 
everything in your life which you have 
found hard to understand. You remember 
how, even in girlhood, the spirit in you 
that was self-reliant and radiant and 
optimistic would carry you forward for 
days or even weeks at a time, only to be 
set upon and vanquished in some inex- 
plicable fashion by the other spirit, which 
caused you to draw in upon yourself, to 
be introspective and unhappy and de- 
pressed. In olden days they called it 
being possessed of a devil — this surrender 
to the love-sapping, self-conscious spirit. 
Now we call it simply bad management 
or inefficiency or selfishness or lack 
of self-control. 

** Through the first years of your mar- 
ried life, when your blood ran fast with 
the joy of achievement, you kept it down — 
this other spirit; and only in these later 
years — when you have had less to occupy 
[lis] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

you, when changes in your life have come 
fast — has it spread its control insidi- 
ously, until, without your realizing it, 
your real self, the self of your happier, 
younger days, has been entirely subdued, 
"/ saw it on the afternoon I first met 
you — the battle of the two spirits. My 
call came at a happy moment — when 
something of the old thrill of living was 
on you — and you came down to meet me 
in obedience to a sudden impulse, though 
I venture to say that you had denied 
yourself to all other visitors since you 
arrived in town. But the better impulse 
carried you only to the parlor door. You 
surrendered to the old spirit there; you 
cringed — that's a mean little word, but 
ifs true — you would have turned back if 
you could. While we talked about your 
earlier life with Mr. Dives and your 
struggles together, something of the old 
fire came back; you were a different 
woman — the charming, enthusiastic, pur- 
poseful woman that your husband first 
[114] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

loved. And then, as I left you, you shrank 
back again. You could not come to 
church, you told me; you seldom went 
out; Mr. Dives usually went alone. That 
was your evil spirit in the saddle again. 

''You have told yourself that your 
husband was drawing away from you and 
that was true in a sense. He has gone on 
and on in the bounding, buoyant spirit 
of his youth, meeting new people, growing 
into new responsibilities, enjoying his life 
to the full. And you, instead of bounding 
along at his side, have stood still. Of 
course he has drawn away from you. You 
stayed at home when he wanted you to go 
with him — until after a while he didnH 
ask you any more. You forgot how to 
dress; you let his interests multiply with- 
out your help; you let your daughter lose 
her respect for you. And you thought 
your husband had ceased to love you, when 
really it was you who had killed the woman 
whom he used to love. 

"Now you are coming back. You will 
[115] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

be radiant and happy when you alight from 
the train. You will be prettier than yon 
have been in years, and better dressed. 
You will be full of the joy of your re- 
cent experiences. He will meet you and 
you will be a new woman to him — or 
rather the old woman, the woman of his 
own boyhood dreams. And you must 
keep him in that spirit. 

''One word more. Love feeds upon 
sacrifice; it grows strong only when 
strong demands are put upon it. You 
stopped demanding anything of your hus- 
band years ago. You must begin de- 
manding of him again — begin the minute 
you meet him on the platform. He must 
feel in that minute that you expect to con- 
tribute much to his life from nov) on, and, 
in turn, to demand much from him. Be- 
gin by demanding something in that 
moment; you might, for instance, drop 
your glove and let him pick it up. Let 
him start from that moment to feed his 
love upon sacrifice — just as you will 
[116] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

start to feed it upon optimism, and good 
cheer and the old vibrant interest in his 
affairs. 

"/ shall not see you when you arrive. 
I have done all that I can for you. From 
now on you must carry your life forward 
in your own strength. But I shall pray 
for you. And you are going to be very 
happy. Remember that always — very, 
very happy." 

I heard Number Forty-two whistle 
at four o'clock the next afternoon, just 
as I was stepping out of the barber 
shop across the street from the station. 
It is dark at four o'clock in November, 
and almost without knowing it I turned 
my steps in the direction of the station. 
I could not resist the temptation; the 
thought of the two had been with me 
all day. 

His carriage was at the end of the 

platform. I slipped behind it and came 

up among the group at the station door 

without being observed. He was pacing 

[117] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

restlessly up and down at the place 
where the single Pullman car on Forty- 
two would stop. He did not see me, nor 
anything else, apparently. His eyes 
were turned intently to the oncoming 
locomotive, which pitched and swayed 
and finally halted. With one bound he 
was on the platform of the Pullman. 
He was nervous, almost painfully so — 
but hardly more nervous than I. 

Which woman would come down, I 
wondered — the strong self-reliant, ra- 
diant woman, or the tired, depressed, 
shrinking one. Would she slink into 
his arms or would she stand straight and 
smiling, waiting for him to take her? 
Would it be the wife of his youth who 
came back to him or the wife of his 
last three years .^^ 

All this raced through my mind in an 
instant, while a bent old man was mak- 
ing his way painfully out of the car and 
onto the platform. Then suddenly, al- 
most with a bound, it seemed to me, 
[118] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

she alighted. She was new-robed from 
head to foot in clothes of a style that 
had not yet reached our little city. Her 
veil was pushed back in that alluring 
way that women know, and her face 
fairly shone. I slipped up beside them: 
I could not help it and they never knew 
— they would hardly have turned had 
I shouted in their ears. 

"Marion," he cried, and took her in 
his arms. "Oh, Marion, it's good to 
have you home!" 

And then the great thing happened. 
She gave a startled little cry, and 
pointed to the car. 

"Oh George, quick — " she said, "IVe 
left my purse on the car!" 

I saw him leap again for the platform 
and a moment later, just as I turned 
the corner of the station, I looked 
again, to see him swing off the end of 
the last coach, waving her purse in his 
hand and smiling like a boy out of 
school. 

[119] 



THE WOMAN DIVIDED 

They went away to Europe that 
winter. He told me boyishly that they 
had planned it out and dreamed about 
it years before, but that lately his wife 
had rather given up the idea. And 
before they returned I had been called 
away to another charge. But I have 
thought of them many times in the 
years that have passed, and wondered 
whether she has had the courage and 
the power to keep it up. 

I believe she has. 



[120] 



THE SHADOW ON 
SCREEN 



THE 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

THE FIFTH OF THE EXPERIENCES 



DO not pretend to explain every 
detail of this story. Those for whom 
^ there are no mysteries under the 
sun, who brush aside every manifesta- 
tion of the Unknown with the mere 
murmur of their charm word ** coin- 
cidence" will, of course, find nothing in 
it worthy of explanation. But I con- 
fess that I have never succeeded in 
bringing myself into that easy-going, 
undiscriminating attitude of mind. 
There have been too many experiences 
in my ministry that have passed beyond 
the border of the finite; too many occa- 
sions when, coming to a sudden rift 
in the road, I have stretched out my 
hand and felt it closed in the strong 
[ 123] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

grasp of a hand I could not see. Every 
minister who has kept the faith knows 
the rich reality of such experiences. 

One of them came in the very first 
year of our work, when the drouth had 
blasted the crops of our people and we, 
with them, stood within the very shadow 
of want. I remember how on the day 
when our last dollar had gone for relief, 
when I did not know where we should 
find food for another meal, there came 
a letter from an almost-forgotten friend 
in the North, and in it a check for $100. 
"Coincidence," you say. But was it 
merely a coincidence that the help 
should come from an apparently impos- 
sible source in the very moment of our 
extremity.^ Perhaps it was; but I can- 
not think so. 

I remember that when the message 
came my little boy, a thousand miles 
away, lay dying, and I remember the 
agony of spirit in which for seven hours 
I wrestled with the Lord, that life might 
[124] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

be returned to him. Suddenly, just as 
the sun dipped behind the horizon, a 
voice as clear as any voice I have ever 
heard said, "Peace, be still! Your son 
lives." Sunset was at five-thirty that 
day; I was concerned enough to look 
it up in the daily newspaper. And it 
was just at that hour, so his mother 
told me afterwards, that our little boy, a 
thousand miles away, turned his hot 
fevered face to the wall and dropped 
into a saving sleep. There are those 
who will be satisfied to label that, too, a 
"coincidence"; it pleases me to know 
that it was the voice of God. 

And so with the Widow Marshall — 
for even to this day I cannot recall 
that she had any other name. I only 
know that her boy did come back, and 
in the way here set down. But whether 
the circumstances of his return were 
of chance occurrence or in fulfillment of 
faith I leave each one of you to answer 
for himself. 

[ 125 ] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

On my arrival my predecessor in the 
parish had described her to me. I have 
always remembered him very gratefully 
because of that. Ordinarily a minister 
comes into a new parish after his pred- 
ecessor has left and without friends or 
acquaintances to whom he may look 
for advice; and the wonder is that he 
ever survives the diplomatic demands 
and exigencies of the first few weeks. In 
this case, however, the predecessor, good 
shepherd that he was, went over the 
whole flock, calling each sheep by name 
from the greatest even to the least, 
from the whitest through the brown and 
dark brown and even to the black. 
When he had finished I knew enough 
about the individual characteristics and 
idiosyncracies of my new charges to 
guard me from offending any of them 
at the outset. 

But the Widow Marshall he did not men- 
tion at all until I called his attention to 
the fact that he had passed over her name. 
[126] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

"Oh, you needn't bother much about 
her," he said. "She's just a poor old 
widow who lives away out on the edge 
of things somewhere. A good worker, 
though; always on hand to help with 
the church suppers and all that. I 
meant to call on her sometimes but you 
know how it is — and of course she's 
not really very important." 

"Does she have any family.^" I asked. 

"No. Wait! Let's see — there is 
some story about her having a boy who 
went away — now how is that.^^" He 
passed his hand back and forth across 
the bald spot on his head — which was 
his habit when perplexed — but appar- 
ently the friction provoked no further 
remembrance. "She has a story," he 
added finally. "Somebody told me her 
story once — but I can't remember. 
And, anyway, she's not very important. 
Might be a good plan for you to call on 
her sometime, though, after you've called 
on the folks who expect it." 
[127] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

And I made up my mind I would call. 

The church gave us a reception — a 
horrible habit churches have in wel- 
coming a new pastor — and all the 
membership filed by us in a long, be- 
wildering procession, leaving us with 
weary hands and arms and a confused 
babble of names in our minds. When 
there was a little break, I caught eagerly 
at the suggestion of the wife of one of 
the trustees that I might look over 
the arrangement of the church and par- 
ticularly the kitchen, of which the ladies 
were very proud. 

As we entered the kitchen door I 
noticed a woman standing at the stove, 
her sleeves rolled to her elbows and her 
cheeks suffused with the ruddy glow 
which the heat imparts. She must have 
been between forty-five and fifty, with 
the ample bust and hips that used to 
be an essential part of all artist's pic- 
tures of "mother." Her hair had loos- 
ened a little and wreathed about her 
[128] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

face, which was mild and round and 
mellowed, as though there had been 
rains of sorrow dispelled by sunbeams of 
self-forgetfulness more resolute and 
abiding. 

She turned toward us with a half- 
apologetic little smile, but my guide 
apparently did not see her. I caught 
the smile, though, the timid start in our 
direction, and the embarrassed halt as 
she saw that we were about to pass her 
by. In her confusion she dropped a 
spoon and I hastened to pick it up and 
hand it to her. 

"I am the new minister," I said to 
her. "I don't think we have met." 

My words seemed to add to her con- 
fusion. She started to speak, but my 
guide had bustled up, intent on handling 
the situation. 

"This is Mrs. Marshall, Doctor. — My 

dear, this is Dr. Jones, our new pastor. 

— Mrs. Marshall never gets out into 

the church parlors, Doctor; she always 

[ 129 ] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

finds SO much to keep her busy here in 
the kitchen. We all say that she is 
one of our most useful members." 

It was spoken in a voice meant to 
be kind, but there was an air of con- 
descension which said plainly enough, 
"You needn't waste any time here. 
Doctor; it won't be appreciated. This 
is only Mrs. Marshall; she's not quite 
in our class, of course, but she's very 
useful at church dinners." And it did 
me good to see that Mrs. Marshall, 
even underneath her timidity, sensed the 
tone of patronage and resented it. 

I determined, in spite of my guide's 
obvious restlessness, to have a talk with 
Mrs. Marshall but I was thwarted by a 
peremptory call from the parlor. I 
held out my hand, and she took it in 
her big, motherly clasp, still moist from 
the dishwater. 

"I am coming to call on you very 
soon," I said. "I want to know the 
really important members of the con- 
[130] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

gregation, the ones that do the real 
work." 

"Oh, thank you," she responded. 
And then, as though not quite sure of 
herself, "perhaps — perhaps you and 
Mrs. Jones would come to supper." 

"Supper," I repeated. "Supper! I 
haven't heard that blessed word since 
we reached this big city. I had begun 
to think that nobody here has any 
supper. You better believe we will come 
and just as soon as you say the word." 

The conversation had not pleased my 
guide. She turned to me with an af- 
fected little laugh as we made our way 
toward the parlor. 

"All things to all men I see, Doctor," 
she said, "and all women too. Do you 
know, you said that as though you 
really meant it.^" 

But I pretended not to hear her. 

I looked for Mrs. Marshall at the 
following Sunday morning service. It 
was some time before I discovered her 
[131] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

tucked away under a corner of the 
gallery. She was gowned in a plain 
black suit, which even from a distance 
appeared to have shrunk about her 
ample figure, but there was a wholesome 
sincerity in her eager gaze that drew 
my eyes back to her repeatedly. Per- 
haps I was just a little homesick. We 
had come from a country parish to the 
new church, a large one in an eastern 
city, and I felt a well-bred aloofness 
on the part of the congregation, which 
contrasted jarringly with the rude in- 
formality to which we had been accus- 
tomed. Through that atmosphere of 
strangeness, of kindly but rather emo- 
tionless reserve, the shining countenance 
of the Widow Marshall beamed out upon 
me like a benediction from home. There 
was no dignified reserve in her; she 
leaned forward eagerly when I an- 
nounced the text and her appreciation 
of the sermon as I developed its several 
phases was registered in successive waves 
[132] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

of gratification across her sensitive face. 
If that first sermon was a success, as 
the influential members of my congre- 
gation were good enough to assure me, 
it was due not to their courteous atten- 
tion, but rather to the inspiration flashed 
up to me from the Widow Marshall, 
who in her features and dress and un- 
affected interest represented to me the 
loving solicitude of my own little con- 
gregation back home. 

Each Sunday she was in her place 
promptly but always before I could 
make my way to the door after the 
service she had slipped quietly away. 
The weeks lengthened into months and 
I had still not fulfilled my promise to 
call. Then one Sunday I preached from 
the parable of the Prodigal Son. I 
thought of her as I announced the text 
and, glancing over, saw that she had 
edged forward a little farther than usual 
on her seat and was gazing straight 
into my face in rapt attention. The 
[133] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

theme is a favorite one with preachers, 
and he is indeed lacking in imagination 
and in enthusiasm for his message who 
can preach upon it without being Kfted 
a Httle out of himself. As I traced the 
story of the boy's wanderings, his life 
in the far country, his final remorse and 
repentance and return to his father, I 
forgot the Widow Marshall and all else 
in my interest in the story. I pictured 
the Prodigal coming to the top of the 
hill overlooking his father's house and 
then starting down the road that led 
to the gate; I spoke of the father's 
glad cry of welcome, the feast prepared 
to celebrate the home-coming and the 
final hosanna of thanksgiving. **This 
my son was dead, and is alive again; 
he was lost and is found." It was then, 
at the climax of the story, that there 
was a slight rustle in the rear of the 
church and I turned in time to see the 
Widow Marshall slip out, her handker- 
chief pressed to her eyes. 
[ 134] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

In that instant there flashed through 
my mind what my predecessor had told 
me about her. There was some story, 
he had said, about her son. I blamed 
myself that I should have allowed the 
months to elapse without learning her 
story, that I had not reserved my sermon 
on the Prodigal until after my call. 
Had I by my sermon added to the 
burden of her grief .^ Had I drawn a 
rude hand across her heart strings.^ I 
could hardly wait to drop a note to 
her — addressing it simply to "Mrs. 
Marshall," for so her name appeared on 
our church directory list — recalling her 
promise to have Mrs. Jones and me to 
supper and asking if we might come 
some time during the week. On Tuesday 
the answer arrived, written on a half 
sheet of note paper, in a prim, old- 
fashioned hand. She would be very 
glad, it said, if we would come to supper 
on Thursday at six o'clock. 

We were late, for her cottage stood 
[135] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

clear out beyond the city limits in a 
section totally unfamiliar to me. As 
we entered the little gate we heard the 
music of a parlor organ and a voice, 
which I knew must be hers, raised in the 
appealing strains of the old mother 
chant : 

^'Hush my child, lie still and slumber; 
Holy angels guard thy bed."" 
It was the song that my own mother 
had sung to each one of her six in suc- 
cession, and I can never hear it without 
a little tightening about the heart. 

She opened the door for us herself. 
There was no evidence of the timidity 
that I had come to expect in her; in- 
stead, her greeting had in it a quiet 
dignity. And I liked the fact that she 
made no apology for the house or the 
meal. 

"Have you lived here long.^" I asked. 

"About five years. You see, when my 
husband died I had to find a home that 
I could maintain, and finally I came 
[136] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

clear out here. It's a long way out," 
she smiled, "but there is air and there 
are flowers and birds." 

"I think it's lovely," Mrs. Jones said. 
I could feel in her voice a trace of long- 
ing for our own cottage in the country 
parish. 

There was homesickness in the supper, 
too: in the big slices of home-made 
bread; in the butter, home-churned; 
in the home-made pickles and the big 
apple pie with the juice fairly bursting 
through the top. Of all the meals I 
ever ate in that parish — some of them 
served by butlers in many courses — 
there was not one that seemed so won- 
derfully good as that. In the midst of 
it a mantel clock struck seven and Mrs. 
Marshall excused herself for a moment. 
I watched her curiously as she brought 
in from the kitchen a little kerosene 
lamp and set it in the parlor window. 
I noticed then, for the first time, that 
she had cut a tiny circle from the centre 
[ 137 ] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

of the curtain, just big enough to allow 
the lamp's rays to shine through. From 
the outside the house would appear 
entirely dark except for this little signal 
of light and love. The Widow Marshall 
caught the glance of inquiry in our eyes 
as she returned to the table, and said 
simply: 

"It's for my boy; he is away, you 
know." 

"I know," I said. "Won't you tell 
us about him.^" 

She hesitated, but I believe she was 
really grateful for the suggestion. "I 
haven't talked about it much," she said. 
But — I think you would understand," 
I know we should," I assured her, 
and she smiled — a slow, lingering smile 
with a touch of pathos in it. 

"It's nearly six years since he went 
away," she began. "We were still living 
in Haydensburg at that time." 

" Haydensburg, Ohio!" I exclaimed. 
"Why, that's in our home county." 
[138] 






THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

"I knew it," she responded. "That's 
why I knew that I should love you as 
a pastor. From that first night when 
I saw you at the church in the kitchen 
I was sure that you would be just like 
home folks. You see none of the other 
pastors ever called on me." 

I gritted my teeth to keep back the 
words my tongue would have spoken 
about those too-busy, too-discriminat- 
ing predecessors of mine. I think she 
noticed it, because she smiled again, a 
little wistfully. 

"My husband owned the dry goods 
store out in Haydensburg, and we were 
very happy there for many years. He 
was trustee of the church and president 
of the village board. He was a very 
strong, commanding man. I have often 
thought that in a larger sphere my 
husband would have achieved a great 
reputation. We had only one child, our 
boy Samuel. He was our joy, our 
whole life. Almost from the day he 
[ 139 ] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

was born, my husband began laying 
plans for his future. They would go 
into partnership, he said — it would be 
"Marshall & Son." They would buy 
the stores in the adjoining towns and 
build a chain of stores that might 
stretch across the state. Every business 
move that he made was planned with the 
thought of the boy, and it really seemed, 
as he would talk to me about it, that 
there would be no limit to what the two 
might do together." 

"And how about the boy.?" I asked. 

The last vestige of the smile was lost 
from her face as she ansv/ered: 

"Do you believe in heredity, Doctor 
Jones.?" 

"I do," I said; "I think it explains 
many things that are otherwise unex- 
plainable." 

"I knew you would say so!" she 
exclaimed. "It's true. All of my an- 
cestors were sea captains. It was their 
blood pounding in his veins like the 
[140] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

v/aves on the seashore that called him. 
I know it was. I tried to tell John so. 
Oh," she cried, "if he only could have 
believed it." She paused for a moment, 
and I thought she would cry, but she 
regained control of herself with an 
effort, and made a half-hearted little 
attempt to smile. 

"From the time Sam first began to 
walk," she continued,- "there was no 
interest in his life but boats. He sailed 
little boats in the bath tub; he would 
spend all day long down at the little 
brook that ran through the meadow by 
our house. Once he ran away and was 
gone two days and when we found him 
at last he said he had decided to be 
a sailor. That was when he was only 
seven. 

"His father couldn't understand. The 
Marshalls for generations had never 
seen any water larger than Lake Erie. 
His father and grandfather had lived 
in the same house in Haydensburg; he 
[141] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

couldn't realize that five generations of 
sea-rovers were calling to my boy — he 
thought it was just perverseness. 

"And Sammy tried — oh, so hard. 
He worked at his lessons and at night 
he would sit and try to be interested in 
the plans that his father had for the 
business. But I could see the little 
worry lines in his face that meant he 
had to drive himself to it. His heart 
was far away, and it made my soul 
sick to think of it. 

"Something had to happen, of course, 
for as he grew older he developed a will 
as strong almost as his father's. There 
had to be a conflict sometime, and one 
Saturday night it came. School had 
closed for the spring vacation. He came 
bounding in at night, his face glowing, 
to tell us that with three other boys he 
had planned a canoe trip to last a week. 
His father had wanted to have him 
spend the week at the store. Both of 
them were tired and impatient, and so 
[142] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

in spite of anything that I could do the 
quarrel came. Next morning when I 
went to knock at his door there was no 
answer." She pressed her handkerchief 
to her eyes, and it was several minutes 
before she spoke again. 

"That was six years ago," she said. 
"I have not seen him nor heard from 
him since. I have managed to live 
through it somehow" — she forced a 
wan little smile — "but it was too much 
for his father. He never realized how 
much the boy meant in his life until 
— until he went out of it. For a year 
he did everything that could be thought 
of to find some trace, and when every- 
thing failed, when there was no more 
hope, he seemed to lose his grip on life. 
You see," she faltered, "he thought — 
that — Sam was dead." 

She buried her face in her hands for 
a moment, and then threw it back 
almost defiantly. 

"But it isn't true," she exclaimed 
[143] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

determinedly; "he is alive; he will 
come back to me. Every night since 
he went away I have lit the lamp for 
him in the window; he will come back!" 
She rose and, carried away by the stress 
of her emotion, crossed the room and 
grasped me by the arm. "Doctor, you 
are a man of God. Tell me — tell me 
that he will come back — " 

I pulled her gently down upon the 
old haircloth sofa beside me and spoke 
very quietly, for she was on the point 
of a breakdown: 

"Your own heart tells you that he 
will come back, doesn't it.^" I asked. 

"Yes, yes," she cried, "I know it." 

"Then I know it, too," I answered, 
"for remember this, Mrs. Marshall: 
God is love, and motherhood is love; 
both are parts of the same immortal 
spirit. And the heart of a mother is 
nearer to the heart of God than any- 
thing else in this world. Your own 
heart, you say, tells you that he will 
[ 144 ] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

come back. I tell you that it is God 
speaking to your heart. Your boy will 
return to you — and I shall pray every 
day that it may be soon." 

She did not try to thank me. She 
sat very still for a few minutes, and 
when she lifted her head she was her 
own controlled self again. She stepped 
over to the bookcase in the corner and 
taking down an old Bible brought it 
to me. 

"The last time our minister in Hay- 
densburg called," she said, "he took the 
Bible and glanced at the first page 
where it opened and gave me a memory 
verse. There it is." I followed the 
direction of her gesture and saw framed 
on the wall this verse: 

Trust in the Lord and do good; so 
shalt thou dwell in the land and verily 
thou shalt be fed, 

"It's been a wonderful comfort to 
me," she said, "for there were times 
after the store was sold when I wasn't 
[ 145] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

always sure of being fed. But it's time 
for me to have a new verse," she con- 
tinued; ** won't you open the Book and 
read me one from the first page you 
turn to?" 

I opened the Bible at random, and 
glancing at the page as she had asked 
read to her: 

And at evening time it shall be light. 

"That is your verse," I said. "There's 
your light in the window at eventide 
for your boy, and some night God will 
flash the light of his love and reveal 
him to you. Remember — in the 
troubled times, when things look darkest 
— remember at evening time it shall 
be light." 

"Thank you a thousand times, 
Doctor," she cried. 

And so we left her comforted. 

Every Sunday morning she was in 

her place under the gallery, though it 

must have taken her an hour at least 

to come; and one Wednesday evening 

[ 146 ] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

I was surprised to find her at the prayer 
meeting. She lingered after the others 
had gone; I could see that she wanted 
to speak to me. Indeed, she seemed 
hardly able to contain herself until we 
were alone in my study. 

"Oh, Doctor," she burst out, "such 
a wonderful thing has happened!" 

"He has come home.'^" I said. 

"No, not yet," she responded, her 
enthusiasm dampened just a trifle. "He 
hasn't come yet, but he's coming. This 
month he's coming. God has promised 
it to me." 

"Tell me about it," I said quietly. 

"It was last night. I was asleep, and 
suddenly I saw him as plainly as I see 
you here. I seemed to be in darkness, 
until all at once a glow of light came 
from above and there he was in the 
middle of it — my Sam, my boy. He 
has grown older and his shoulders have 
broadened out but his features haven't 
changed a bit. He had on sailor clothes 
[147] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

as though he had come home from a 
long journey. I reached out my hands 
to him and cried, and just then I heard 
a voice, as clear as could be. *Have 
faith,' it said. 'At evening time it 
shall be light.' Oh, Doctor, you be- 
lieve it, don't you.^ Tell me. Doctor, 
that you believe it." 

What could I say.^ I answered her 
with all the assurance I could command 
and walked with her to the street car. 
But all the way home I found myself 
wondering at the second sight that is 
sometimes the gift of God to mothers, 
and praying earnestly that in the case of 
the Widow Marshall the vision which her 
faith had brought her might prove 
true. 

Saturday morning I received a little 
note written in her quaint, old-fashioned 
hand, apparently on the other half of 
the sheet of paper on which she had 
written us before. The vision, she said, 
had come to her again; she knew now 
[148] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

that God had heard and would answer 
our prayers. She was very happy. Sun- 
day morning I saw her at a distance, but 
there was little time to think of her or 
of anybody else, for that evening I was 
to give the first of my series of talks on 
the Life of Christ, illustrated with 
lantern slides, and I left immediately 
after the morning service to prepare 
for it. 

The church was packed that night. 
Stereopticon slides, and particularly col- 
ored slides, were a far greater novelty 
in those days than they are now. The 
lantern was in the gallery and the screen, 
which was a large one, hung clear 
across the choir loft behind the pulpit. 
I began with a map of Galilee, showed 
pictures of the birth in the manger and 
the flight into Egypt, and then some 
scenes in modern Nazareth, accompany- 
ing the slides with a description of the 
experiences and habits which must have 
made up the boyhood of Jesus. So 
[149] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

far as was possible, I told the story in 
the words of the Gospel narrative, and 
the effect must have been both vivid 
and impressive, for the audience sat in 
perfect silence. 

We came at length to the baptism 
in the river Jordan: 

"'And Jesus, when he was baptised,'" 
I said, following Matthew's account, 
"'went up straightway out of the 
water—'" 

I glanced at the screen, expecting 
to see the picture of the baptism, but 
instead the operator had projected a 
scene belonging much later in the lec- 
ture. He realized his mistake instantly 
and withdrew the slide, while I went 
on with the narrative: 

"'went up straightway out of the 
water, and lo, a voice — '" 

At that instant, when the screen was 

blank, a man rose in front of the lantern 

in the gallery, so that his head intercepted 

the light and his silhouette was thrown 

[150] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

with perfect sharpness on the gleaming 
circle in the middle of the screen. 

The shadow was there only an instant, 
for the man immediately dropped back 
into his seat and the operator flashed 
on the screen the baptism picture. But 
in that moment the congregation was 
startled by a piercing cry from under 
the gallery. 

*'My son, my boy! Oh, Sammy, 
my boy!" said the voice. 

Then there was a more general cry of: 

"Lights! Turn on the lights!" 

I thought I recognized the voice. 
"Turn on a light," I said firmly. "Let 
everyone remain perfectly quiet." 

An usher in the rear snapped on one 
of the electric lights and, looking in that 
direction, I saw the Widow Marshall 
rushing for the gallery door. Two or 
three men left their seats and followed, 
attempting to quiet her, but an army 
would not have succeeded. 

"Sammy!" she called, "Your mother 
[151] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

is coming for you, Sammy." She 
seemed to have cleared the stairway in 
a single bound, for before I quite realized 
what had happened she was in the gal- 
lery. Following the light of the stere- 
opticon down to the front row of seats, 
she threw her arms about the neck of 
the tall young man whose shadow had 
appeared upon the screen. 

The congregation was in a furor of 
excitement. Men stood up; women, 
restless in the dark, whispered shrilly 
to each other. I stepped to the front 
of the platform, and shouted out into 
the darkness : 

** Let no one leave his seat. The lights 
will be turned on in a moment. The 
lecture will be continued next Sunday 
night, but this service will be closed now 
with the benediction. You have seen 
a greater sermon than your ears will 
ever hear. You have seen the answer 
of many prayers, and the dead returned 
to life." 

[152] 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

While the congregation was composing 
itself for the benediction I sent an usher 
to bring the Widow Marshall and her 
boy to my study, and there after a few 
minutes I found them both, their faces 
smiling through their tears. 

"He has come back!" cried the Widow 
Marshall, pushing the big, fine-featured 
lad forward until he nearly fell into my 
arms. "Oh, Doctor, the vision, is ful- 
filled. At evening time there was 
light." 

He told her that night about his wan- 
derings and why his letters had not 
reached her and how he had gone back 
to Haydensburg and from there had 
traced her to the city. All day he had 
tramped about through the unfamiliar 
city streets, and, drawn by the lights 
and the music, he had at length wand- 
ered into the church. It was very late 
before the story ended and I pressed 
them both to come to our house for the 
night rather than undertake the long 
[153 1 



THE SHADOW ON THE SCREEN 

ride home. But the Widow Marshall 
would not have it so. 

"The light is burning for Sammy in 
the window," she said. "I want him to 
come home and blow it out." 



[ 154 



